Foundations of the World
by 50caliberchaos
Summary: Hoenn lays broken, reeling from civil war and suffocating beneath the tyrannical grip of warlords who rampage across the land. To this shattered country May, Wallace, and their allies bring a message of hope. But can May's idealism survive the realities of war? Can Wallace survive his disease? Fate has them set on a collision course with monsters, gods, and perhaps even each other.
1. Wallace - Chapter 1 - For Dear Life

AN: Good evening everyone and welcome to Book Two of my Pokémon Legendarium, _Foundations of the World_. If you liked _The Sun Soul_ then you'll enjoy this next installment, but don't think it's going to be nothing but more of the same. I'm planning on incorporating a lot of what I learned from my mistakes with _The Sun Soul_, while advancing in a new direction.  
>Unlike its predecessor, <em>Foundations<em> will be told from several different viewpoints, rather than from a single character's point of view. Hopefully this will keep things good and fresh while letting me show off more of the world.  
>At any rate, welcome to Hoenn and enjoy!<br>Peace.

* * *

><p>Wallace – Chapter One – For Dear Life<p>

Leaning back and pulling his stethoscope away from the young boy's chest, the doctor in the white lab coat, the morning sunlight glinting off his spectacles and dancing across the crème-colored wallpaper of the little room as he did, shook his head. He slipped his hand behind the back of the boy lying in the bed on which he sat and helped the youngster into a sitting position, thereafter setting and shifting his stethoscope around the boy's back for several moments and listening. The room fell silent as the doctor worked and, from his position by the door to the room, a tall man wearing segmented black body armor folded his hands across his chest and waited, tapping his foot on the lush burgundy carpet.

The doctor cleared his throat. "Alright," he said somberly, again putting his hand on the boy's back. "Take a few deep breaths for me, as deep as you can Wallace, even if it hurts."

Closing his sapphire blue eyes as pain streaked across his face, Wally slowly drew in a breath. Jerking forward as his lungs reached capacity the boy flew into a fit of coughing, pressing one hand to his chest and the other to his lips and wheezing as he shook. "I'm sorry," croaked the boy as the doctor patted his back with a wrinkled hand. "I still can't breathe very-" an exceedingly long and heavy cough cut him off and filled the room with the sound of ripping paper, "deep," he finished, pulling his hand away from his lips and wiping it clean of the crimson slime that had escaped his mouth and clung to his fingers.

Taking a towel from the nightstand beside the bed and handing it to Wallace, the doctor again cleared his throat. "Don't apologize; you've been through a lot more than most fifteen year old boys."

The man in the armor beside the door walked forward, his own sapphire eyes locked on the boy in the bed. "Be honest with me doctor," he said, his weathered face carefully cleared of any sign of emotion even as he pulled a pokeball from his belt and began rolling it around in his hands, "what's the prognosis? Is my son going to be alright?"

Looking between Wallace and his father, the doctor stood and moved to lean his back against the wall to better address both members of his audience. "At this time," he said, his tone solemn, "I believe so, yes." The doctor continued as the armored man sighed in relief and Wallace turned to look up at him. "The vasculitis did a lot of damage but the blood work we've done the last several weeks and what I'm seeing now tells me that you're going to survive."

Wallace grimaced. "I feel awful doctor," he said. "I can barely breathe and I'm still coughing up all this," he paused and motioned to the slimy red putrescence he had expelled from his lungs and wiped on the bed's comforter, "stuff."

"I know it's hard to see from where you're sitting," said the old man, "but you need to realize you're doing so much better than you were two months ago. Back then sir, we had you on a ventilator and were giving you so much morphine to cope with the pain…" he trailed off and patted Wallace's back comfortingly. "I know it's been a long, hard few months, but you're doing better. And the disease didn't hit you nearly as hard as it could have in the first place because we caught it early. Normally this type of vasculitis would utterly destroy your lungs, kidneys, your eyes your ears. Even your heart and your brain could have been completely torn apart, but fortunately the vasculitis stuck to your lungs and we managed to put it in remission it before it could spread much beyond. You're actually quite fortunate my little lord."

Taking a shallow breath and wincing in pain Wallace again descended into a fit of coughing that left his palms sticky with a red slime evacuated from his chest. "I guess I got the long end of the short end of the stick," he said.

Nodding, the doctor smiled. "That's certainly one way to look at it," he said comfortingly. "For now though you need to concentrate on getting your strength back. You've been out of commission for two months and you know what they say about recovering from bed rest. It takes-" the old doctor stopped as Wallace leaned forward in the bed and again began coughing, waiting for the boy to finish.

Still hacking and crumpling over, Wallace closed his eyes tightly as each spasm of his lungs turned his face redder and redder. As the raking noises from his chest intensified, the boy in the patient's gown heaved forward, grabbing the doctor's sleeve with one hand and heaving for air. A retching cough tore from Wallace's throat and he vomited over the edge of the bed, splattering the floor with a muck shot through with blood and bile.

Leaping forward to support him as the teenage boy slumped over; the man in the composite armor grabbed his son around the waist. "Wallace!" he screamed as the boy's eyes rolled back and he passed out. "Wallace! What's wrong?" He looked down at the bed sheets as a red puddle began spreading out from where Wallace's unconscious form sat on the bed.

Laying Wallace back on the bed, the doctor looked up to the man standing beside the bed. "Lord Weaver," he shouted, sternly with an edge of icy calm in his tone as he stood and tore open the nightstand. "Get to my laboratory and fetch Jenna my assistant. Tell her Wallace shows all the signs of acute renal failure. She'll know what to do. Go!"

As the lord sprinted from the room the doctor pulled a small case from the nightstand. Drawing a needle and syringe from the case he pulled the protective cap with his teeth and stuck the needle in Wallace's neck. "Hold on boy," he said, injecting the contents of the syringe into the boy. "I've worked far too hard for you to die on me now. You hold on!"

SC

Waking to a burning pain in his chest and to the sound of a motor loudly whirring away alongside his bed, Wallace remained still and held his eyes closed. He could feel the mask strapped to his face and knew from the increased air pressure it and the motor generated around his mouth and nose that he had gone back on the medical positive airway pressure machine. He consciously opened his mouth to breathe and felt the air flood into his lungs, bringing with it an instant of wondrous relief to the burning in his lungs followed by a searing stab of pain that coursed through his core. Shaking from the pain he winced and his eyes snapped open.

Lying on his back, Wallace explored the dark hospital room in which he found himself. Devoid of any furnishings save a pair of carts laden with medical equipment and a chair in the corner supporting his sleeping father, the room reminded Wallace of the little cell in which he had spent the last few months of his life. Moonlight shown in through the window on the western wall and artificial lamplight flickered in from beneath the heavy curtain pulled across the room's only door. Wallace sighed and closed his eyes again, feeling a hot tear forming in the corner of one eye and dripping down the side of his face.

The boy jerked again when he felt a hand not his own wiping the moist trail away. He opened his eyes and saw his father standing over him, one hand behind his back, the other removing any trace of the tear from Wallace's features. The boy turned away as much as he could as, he quickly discovered, a medical tube inserted into his chest cavity between two ribs made it nearly impossible to move. Another, much more acute pain lanced into him from the tissue around the chest tube as his father, lord William Weaver, pulled his chair closer to the bed and produced a pad of paper and a pen.

Offering the pad and pen to Wallace as he took a seat, lord Weaver smiled when his son took the implements. "How you holding up tough guy?" he asked.

Still aching, Wallace pushed himself up in the bed and leaned against the headboard being cautious not to disturb the chest tube, the IV attached to his left arm, or the tubes running from his mask to the motor sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. Scribbling on the pad, Wallace showed the paper to his father without making eye contact.

"I know," Weaver answered. "You gave us a little scare."

Again Wallace scribbled on the top sheet of paper and turned it towards his father.

Lord Weaver grimaced and leaned forward in the chair, folding his hands on the edge of the bed. "The vasculitis came back hard," he answered. "The blood vessels in your lungs and your kidneys swelled up and tore themselves open, resulting in renal failure and respiratory failure. The old lesions in your lungs bled too and," he paused a moment before continuing, "there was a lot of bleeding in your brain too," he said, voice unsteady. "It looks like it might have damaged your primary motor center…"

Eyes growing wide, Wallace hurriedly scrawled his question on the pad, practically thrusting it at his father to read.

"No," Weaver handed the paper back to his son. "The brain damage looks pretty minimal. Doctor Leinwetter worked his magic and managed to get things under control, but still, there was some damage. Leinwetter said you should expect difficulties doing anything physically demanding like running or lifting anything particularly heavy." He stopped as Wallace began writing and read the message when his son turned the page towards him. "No," Weaver said calmly, sitting back, his armor clanking around his form as he did. "You were completely unconscious for a week and were in and out of it for a few days after that. Son," he reached forward and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You're going to be alright. This was just a bump in the road and-"

Wallace took a deep breath and pulled the mask up and off his head. "A bump in the road, dad, bump in the road? Two major bodily system failures and brain damage are not a bump in the road!" He threw the mask to the ground by the bed and dropped his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees and taking quick, labored breaths. "Dad, I… I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do or think or what to feel." He looked up to his father, tears in his eyes. "Why is this happening to me?" he whispered, face tight with effort to stave off crying. "Why me? It isn't…" he trailed off and bit his lip.

Weaver moved closer and pulled Wallace into a hug. "I know it isn't fair," he said. "This vasculitis shit came out of nowhere, but you can beat it son. You've already survived the worst it can throw at you so you can beat it if you just keep fighting."

"I'm beat, dad," Wallace sighed, pulling his legs close and grabbing his ankles. "I'm so tired. I don't want to fight it anymore." He turned and looked out the window, staring across the grounds of the Weaver Estate, a sprawling complex of storage buildings and barracks devoted to housing his father's countless soldiers and servants and storing the food they produce from the tracts of fertile land under the Weaver family's control. "I'm sorry, dad. I'm so sorry. It doesn't look like I'm going to be able to take over the estate…"

Holding his son, lord Weaver shook his head. "Don't apologize," he said. "Wally, we'll get through this, together. You've got nothing to be sorry for." He nodded to the bag of fluid hanging from a rail above the bed and connected to Wallace by the IV line in the boy's arm. "Doctor Leinwetter's pumping you full of immuno-suppressant steroids and some new drug he called Rituximab to get your immune system to calm down. We'll get you healthy. I don't care if we have to go out and buy you a new immune system. We'll get you healthy and you'll take over the estate just as planned."

Wallace held his breath a moment and ground his teeth together to fight back tears. "Whatever you say dad."

The elder Weaver paused a moment before sitting back from his son. "The doc mentioned that once you came to it was going to be important that we get you up and moving as soon as possible to build your strength back up. Tomorrow, what say we go for a walk around the grounds?" he nodded towards the window. "I'll collect a few of the guards and we can do a lap around the perimeter."

Sighing, Wallace nodded. "Sure," he answered. "Whatever you say."

The following morning brought with it a cool front of weather rolling in from the west. Clouds billowed overhead and chilled breezes threw clouds of tossed dirt about in all directions as Wallace, leaning heavily on a walking stick and flanked on either side by a guard wearing his family's segmented black armor, hobbled along the stone path running between two of his father's wheat fields. Scattered throughout either field, dozens of farmhands and Pokémon of burden worked to ready the ground for the next planting season. Raising a hand to wipe his golden hair out of his eyes, Wallace paused and cleaned the sweat from his brow as one of his guards, a tall character with a shaved head and tattooed face, stepped up beside him.

"With all respect, sir," said the guard, his voice deep and strong as he brandished a sturdy spear in one hand and a pokeball in the other, "I believe we've wandered quite far enough from the compound. Would you like us to escort you back?"

Refusing to answer right away, Wallace looked at the dirt at his feet and then up at the sky above him, watching the clouds swirl and break apart overhead in the wind. "Not just yet," he said, having to strain to raise his voice as the wind picked up. "I want to go a little farther." He turned away from his guards before taking a deep breath and squinting against the pain the action brought with it.

"Sir," the same guard reached forward and put a hand on Wallace's shoulder. "You're not going to get well if you push yourself too hard and overdo it."

Forcing himself to grin, Wallace turned around. "And I'm never going to get well if I don't push it just a little." He turned back to the path before him as any expression save determination melted from his features. "Come on!"

The two trainers and their charge carried on then, Wallace and his walking stick leading the way, making it as far as the edge of the Weaver Estate before they all stopped. Wallace paused and looked into the wilderness then. Past the carefully maintained edge of his father's estate, the grass grew wild and tall for more than a mile before the plain ended abruptly at the edge of the Petalburg woods, beyond which he knew lay the city his family was responsible for feeding. Farther in the distance he could barely make out the silhouette of Mount Pyre. Thanks to the day's exceptionally clear air he could see the lines of the mountain jutting over the horizon and climbing skyward before they disappeared in the clouds. The young boy leaned more of his weight on the walking stick and stared at the mountain for a moment, his chest growing heavy as he stared off into the east. "Someday," he muttered, staring at the mountain.

"Sir," his guard again called out. "I really think we should be returning home. You need your rest milord."

Wallace sighed and looked at the ground. "Fine," he acquiesced, a sharp sensation lancing through his chest and sending a quiver through his frame. He turned around and faced his family's estate. "Let's go home-"

A howling screech roared to life over Wallace's voice and cut him off. Simultaneously a blinding purple light flashed behind the young boy and his guards, followed by an explosion in the center of the field between the estate's perimeter and the edge of the woods. As a fireball rose off the ground and billowed into the sky, carrying a pillar of dirt and debris skyward with it, a visible shockwave rolled through the tall grass and crashed into Wallace and his escorts, throwing the three men violently to the ground.

Scurrying to protect their charge, the two guards crawled between Wallace and the source of the explosion, climbing to their feet and helping Wallace to his as he gasped and clutched at his chest. "Sir," the larger of the two screamed as both levelled their spears and threw their pokeballs to the ground, "please fall back to the compound. It isn't safe here!"

A second screech and explosion rocked the ground beneath them as another flash of purple light and a huge fireball exploded in the field and rose skyward. Behind them Wallace could hear the panicked screaming of the farmhands and the blaring of signal trumpets to rally the family guards.

"No!" Wallace shouted, raising one hand to shield his face as two Pokémon, his escorts' Lairon and Manectric, materialized out of their respective clouds of white light. "We're going to check this out," he called out! We're closer than any of the other guards."

"Sir?" the smaller of the two guards answered uneasily as his Manectric turned to him as if for instructions.

Wallace levelled his gaze at the tall grass. "That's an order," he said sternly. "Follow me," he set off beyond the edge of his family's land, his two escorts immediately stepping forward to flank him.

Trekking through the tall grass and swiping it aside with his walking stick, Wallace made his way to the edge of a clearing in the center of the field where the grass had been burned to the ground. The smell of burning flesh and scorched earth permeated the air and in the center of the clearing, a gap in the field no less than fifty meters across, he spotted what appeared to be a wrecked cart surrounded by the bodies of men and Pokémon alike.

"Groudon's Breath," one of the men quietly swore.

"Watch your mouth," Wallace turned to his guards. "And look for survivors," he ordered, turning back to further examine the scene. "These are Magma troopers," he said, spotting the red and gold armor worn by the figures laying in the clearing as a sober edge crept into his voice. "I don't know what they were doing this close to our land but their boss sure isn't going to be happy when he hears about this."

Walking forward and raising his tan shirt over his mouth and nose to help block out the smell of burnt skin, Wallace made his way to the cart, a structure of wood and steel barely holding together and smoldering quietly. While his guards checked the bodies of the Team Magma soldiers lying here and there throughout the clearing, the boy took as deep a breath as he could without provoking a coughing fit. Climbing up into and standing on what had once been the driver's seat of the cart, Wallace scanned the burning clearing in the field. He looked first at the Magma trainers, muttering "defensive positions" to himself as he noted their positioning. Turning to face the direction in which the cart had been travelling, his eyes grew wide and he called out to his guards. Instantly they were at his side and helping him to the ground.

Wallace walked quickly forward, stopping at the edge of the clearing where there lay crumped a figure like that of a woman dressed in white and red and green. "I think," he said to his guards, "we might have found the source of all this."

There at the edge of the grass a Gardevoir lay in a pool of blood, impaled through and through the chest on the horn of an equally dead Aggron. Both Pokémon looked to have almost ripped each other apart in their final moments; the wiry Gardevoir lay nearly disemboweled, her blood and the contents of her stomach and chest clinging to the Aggron's claws while the larger Pokémon with the steel carapace bore burns down to the bone over most of his body and still smoldered with purple embers, the telltale sign of psychic fire, his eyes burned out such that the charred contents of his skull were clearly visible.

Still guarding his nose against the stench, Wallace stood and stepped away from the two bodies as his guards walked up beside him. "Open the cart," he ordered. "Team Magma will come looking for whatever's in there and we'll want to have it wrapped up with a bow for them when they show up." He stepped forward again as his escorts disappeared around the back of the cart. The sound of prying and creaking wood carried to his ears, Wallace stared down at the dead Gardevoir and the Aggron she had died to stave off. "What was so important you wouldn't run away?" he asked.

A rustle in the grass beyond the scorched earth froze Wallace in his tracks and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. His eyes trained on golden stalks jutting out of the ground, Wallace held his walking stick level like a spear and walked to the edge of the grass. "Somebody there?" he called out for survivors. "Anyone?"

Pushing a tuft of grass out of the way as it walked into the clearing, a squat figure dressed in white emerged from the golden stalks and hobbled to a halt directly between Wallace and the corpses of the Gardevoir and the Aggron. Sucking in a breath and stumbling backwards, Wallace put some distance between himself and the little Pokémon as it looked up at him from behind its long green bangs. "A Ralts?" muttered the boy with the walking stick. "What's a…" he trailed off as the little Pokémon turned and walked to the dead Gardevoir. "Oh," he muttered as the Ralts knelt down and put its hands on the Gardevoir's shoulder, shaking the Pokémon as if to wake it from a deep sleep.

Wallace watched in silence as the Ralts leaned back from the Gardevoir and sat utterly still a moment before breaking out into shaky little hiccups, tears forming in the corner of its crimson eyes and dripping to the ground as it quietly sobbed. Wallace looked beyond the Ralts then, noting a spot in the golden grass bedded down like a nest. "Aw shit," he sighed, counting six other Ralts laying in the nest, each torn open by some harsh implement and unmoving. "That's why the Gardevoir didn't flee," he looked at the crying infant Pokémon. "She was defending her family…" he stopped as the Ralts looked up at him, reaching up to brush its green locks away from its face to see him clearly.

Searching for words for a moment, Wallace's icy blue eyes met the Ralts' crimson red ones. Then, without a thought or a moment's hesitation, he dropped his walking stick and stepped forward, leaning down and picking up the little Pokémon. "You're going to be alright," he whispered, holding the shivering infant against his chest. "I'm going to take care of you," Wallace looked back into the grass, checking a final time for any other survivors and turning away with the Ralts when he saw none. "Tell you what," he said to the Pokémon, "I had six brothers too, but none of them made it either. We're the same, you and I, so I'm going to look out for you, and you can look out for me. I'll be your trainer and you'll be my Pokémon. Deal?"

The Ralts grew deathly still and looked up at Wallace then. The boy likewise froze as he and the Pokémon stared at one another, neither so much as breathing for what felt to the new trainer like an eternity. The Pokémon's eyes, he could swear began to glow softly red and Wallace felt a warmth in his chest. He breathed and the air flowed easily into his lungs. "Alright," he said to the infant Pokémon. "You'll be mine and I'll be yours. We'll watch out for each other from here on out."

One of his guards appeared around the side of the cart and motioned for his attention. "Sir," called the man in the black armor. "You're going to want to see this," he said, stopping as Wallace walked up next to him with the Pokémon."

"What is it soldier?" Wallace asked.

The trooper stared at the Ralts. "Sir," he said. "Are you sure it's wise to be carrying that thing around?"

Wallace looked at the Pokémon out of the corner of his eye before facing the trooper. "_She_," he emphasized, "isn't an 'it.' She's my Pokémon. Now show me what you found in the cart."

"Yes sir," the soldier answered, saluting. "Very good sir." He led Wallace to the back of the cart where the second soldier had already begun offloading a number of crates from the ruined vehicle. As Wallace stepped around the cart, the second soldier tripped and dropped one of the crates to the ground where it shattered and flung its contents into the dirt. Staring at the demolished box as countless coins of gold and silver spilled across the ground, shock plain on his face, Wallace took a second to compose himself and straightened up as the pile of coins gleamed in the sunlight.

Picking himself up from the ground, the soldier dusted down his black armor. "There are more than three dozen coffers identical to this one," said the guard. Some of them are filled with coins, some hold medical supplies and drugs, and one looks to be packed pull of empty pokeballs. Magma's moving around a lot of wealth and they're being awfully quiet about it."

Wallace took a steadying breath. "What's in that one there?" he nodded to a larger steel box near the back of the cart.

The guards both shrugged. "No idea sir," they answered in unison.

Wallace grimaced. "Bring it down here. Go ahead and open it," he ordered.

Immediately the two escorts climbed into the ruined vehicle and grabbed ahold of the dark steel container. Wallace meanwhile turned to look out over the tall grass towards the estate where he could still hear the warning trumpets sounding their calls. Unsure of why more of his family's troops had yet to arrive, Wallace turned back to the scene at hand while the guards set the metal crate on the ground. The taller of the two took a moment to direct his Pokémon, the Lairon lining up and kicking its back foot into the crate's lock and shattering the metal latch like glass. The second escort then pried the lid open, exposing the contents of the crate.

Wallace's eyes grew wide and he stepped forward to look down into the coffer. "Groudon's Breath," he swore quietly, turning to his men. "Go and find my father!" he looked back down and into the crate again. "He's going to want to see this."


	2. May - Chapter 1 - The Ghost Ship

AN: Just let me say thanks to everyone reading this. It's nice to see a bunch of my old friends coming back to read this next installment.  
>The decision to include this chapter initially didn't come easily to me as I included part of it as a teaser at the end of <em>The Sun Soul.<em> That was however before I added a great deal towards the end of the chapter and made it more plot relevant than its teaser counterpart, so even if you read it at the end of the previous book, it would certainly behoove you to read this iteration as well.  
>Additionally, to those of you who messaged me asking if I based Wallace's illness off any real disease, I certainly did so good catch. I decided to inflict upon the poor character a type of vasculitis called Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis, also called Wegner's Granulomatosis. It's a relatively rare autoimmune disease with which I'm intimately familiar as I myself suffer from it. Looking at Wally's symptoms from the game, they line up quite well with a number of respiratory problems, of which I'm most familiar with Wegner's, so that's the one I decided to go with.<br>Now, at the risk of sounding like a whore, I'd like very, very much for you all to leave a review. It doesn't have to be a peer review worthy of a scientific journal, but I really do like hearing back from my readers. Let me know what you think, the good, bad, and ugly. Let me have your advice and critiques. Your feedback genuinely matters to me, so please drop me a review, or if it's something you don't want the community at large to see, then send it to me in a PM. Thanks!  
>Peace.<p>

* * *

><p>May – Chapter One – The Ghost Ship<p>

Biting her lip and surveying the scene about her, May took a breath to steady herself. _That poor man_, the young trainer thought, sitting on the bench several yards down from her observee. As the soldier in Team Rocket's black and red uniform gripped with white knuckles the edges of the barrel and vomited forcefully into the already overfull container, the ship beneath his feet hit the rising crest of a wave and threw him to the ground. The soldier failed to relinquish his grip on the barrel of regurgitated muck and pulled it over as he went down, splashing its contents over himself, the floor, and no less than a dozen nearby sailors.

Her own white and gold regalia dotted with day-old putrescence, May gripped the bench's handholds by her thighs tighter, her stomach churning like a bag of angry snakes. "Ensign!" she snarled at the man on the floor. "Get your sorry self back in your seat! Strap in, and do not get up until the storm is over! If you must puke you will do it in your lap!"

The sailor groaned a "yes ma'am," pushing himself from his hands and knees to his feet just long enough to fall back onto the bench. The Rocket sailors on either side quickly reached over and helped the stricken sailor work the straps over his chest and pelvis, securing him to the seat.

Looking to the sandy-haired youth to her left, May fought back seasickness and nudged him with her elbow. "Odin, are the storms always this rough?" she asked, barely loud enough to be heard over the gale outside.

The room sat so poorly lit May could barely make out the faces three seats down from her, but she easily saw the happy spark in his bright green eyes as Odin shook his head. "No ma'am," he said as the ship pitched sharply and a number of crewmen in the chamber gasped and growled in complaint. "Rougher usually," he stopped as May felt her resolved expression break and she catapulted forward, heaving but not throwing up. "Permission to rub your back, ma'am," Odin asked.

After heaving again, May looked up at him. "Granted," she moaned.

Reaching over and pressing the butt of his hand firmly up and down his commander's back, Odin cleared his throat. "Respectfully ma'am," he said. "There's no need to worry. Seaspear is a good ship, as solid as any vessel thrice her weight. She'll bring us through just fine."

"How do you know?" May asked.

"Mom was a Cinnabarean," Odin answered. "Dad hailed from the Orange Island Navy. My blood is seawater ma'am."

A loud drone and a crash filled the chamber as the ship started to roll so hard that the men on the port side of the room found themselves looking almost straight down at the men on the starboard wall. As the Seaspear righted herself with a splash, a wave of water came rushing down stairs to the top deck and soaked everyone present.

May heaved a third time as Odin shook the saltwater out of his hair and looked around. "Okay," he smiled at her. "That was a big one." He looked over when his commander didn't respond. "Look on the bright side ma'am," he said. "You went toe to toe with a storm this big in a boat as small as this without puking your pretty pink guts out. That's impressive even by my standards."

May groaned again as her stomach churned and her face drained of color. "How much longer can this damn storm possibly last?" she moaned.

Fourteen hours later, the crashing waves and lashing rain began to abate. The men in the Seaspear's hold gradually filtered out of the secure room and returned to their duties about the vessel or left for their racks, leaving May and Odin alone in their seats. The savant in her white and gold armor leaned forward with her head in her hands and the stink of the chamber's spilled barrel of aging vomit filing her nose.

Taking a breath to steady herself, May looked up. "We've been at sea two weeks," she said, eyes sunken. "I've been in the wilds of Johto, Kanto, and the mountains in-between for months at a time and it never beat me to death like this."

"We survived," Odin said, getting up and stretching. "And unless the storm threw us completely off course we should reach Isla Comienzo within the next twelve hours. Restocking there shouldn't take more than a day or two, and from there," he motioned forward with an open hand, "We hop islands straight to Hoenn. Shouldn't take more than three or four months, tops."

"So long?" May asked.

Odin shrugged. "We," he stomped the deck beneath his foot, "could make the trip in this ship in several weeks if we never had to resupply and the wind never slowed us down. But we do have to resupply, navigate to hop the islands from here to Hoenn to do so, and the wind will be against us most of the way. We're not a single ship either. Just because my Seaspear cruises at 29 knots doesn't mean the heavier ships in your fleet can."

Getting to her feet, May rolled her shoulders back. "This is the fastest ship in the fleet by a wide margin," she said. "Maybe I should just take it and go ahead."

"Wouldn't recommend it ma'am," Odin followed as May crossed the room for the stairs leading up to the main deck. "Seaspear cuts through the waves quick enough and her marines are some of the hardest troops in Team Rocket's employ, but there are pirate fleets between here and Hoenn, big ones: Gyarados and Tentacruel too. Any one of those catches us unawares and we're done."

"I know, I know," May grumbled, climbing out into the blinding sunlight on deck, her long hair instantly caught in the fierce breeze and thrown all about her face as Odin walked behind her towards the bow of the ship. "I just want to be there. I want my family's name, our lands back." The young savant gripped the rail at the forward-most extreme of the ship, looking towards the horizon. "Tomorrow wouldn't be soon enough, let alone several months."

"Ma'am," Odin stepped up behind May and stood to her left, "might I offer an alternate perspective?"

Turning back to the youth, May nodded. It occurred to her that she almost didn't recognize Odin as the stammering, awkward soul she'd met on the docks of Pallet town two weeks ago. "Of course," she said. "Offer away."

Leaning against the railing, Odin looked towards the rear of the vessel and at the twelve other ships trailing the Seaspear, each one a minimum of twice the size of the lead vessel. "Think of the coming months as a gift. Once we get to Hoenn the real work starts: politicking, peacekeeping, and probably more than a little warring. Use the time afforded by the trip to strategize, put together a solid plan for how you're going to accomplish what needs doing. We need more than twelve ships and a few hundred men to take and hold an entire continent. You're going to need the goodwill of the people of Hoenn and, respectfully ma'am, your family name alone probably isn't going to be enough… outside Petalburg at least."

Expression unchanged, May kept looking forward, staring intently at the horizon. "You're right," she looked back at Odin. "Is there a gym on Isla Comienzo?"

"Was the last time I was there," the young trainer answered, taking a pokeball from his belt and rolling it around between his fingers. "Some young guy with a few moderately skilled Pokémon from what I hear. Never met him."

"Fine," May shrugged. "Once we land I'll leave restocking the flotilla to you and the other captains. Spare the purses as much as possible."

"Of course," Odin inclined his head to her. "Where should I look for you when we finish?"

"Wherever I can train," May answered, blinking against the wind.

The young savant paused and looked to Odin as he glanced again back at the ships trailing his own. Odin folded his arms in front of his chest. "It might do the men some good to see their commander directing them personally," he said, "if you can find the time."

May shook her head. "I need to spend every spare minute I find between here and Littleroot building and training my team. I want them as strong as possible."

"Respectfully ma'am," Odin offered, "Strong Pokémon are all well and fine, but it would be good for morale if the rest of your men saw you taking an interest in them."

Folding her arms, May turned directly towards her second-in-command. "Morale needs me less than I need my Pokémon," she said curtly. "I'd poured years into training my last team and Mewtwo slaughtered them before I realized the fight started. I'm a trainer at heart Odin. That's where I need to focus my energy."

"Trainers fight wars ma'am," Odin said. "Leaders win them. Men can't follow someone who doesn't lead," he went on, adding very quickly "with all respect."

Closing her eyes against the breeze, May smirked. "How ever did you did you reach Captain with those manners, or rather, complete lack thereof?"

Odin cleared his throat, his face noticeably redder. "Took over when mom and dad passed," he said quietly and matter-of-factly.

"I'm sorry," May flinched.

Features softening, the captain leaned his weight against the railing. "Hemorrhagic Pox," Odin shrugged. "It's the bane of armies, navies, and cities alike in Orange and, from what I hear, Hoenn; spreads like hayfever on a windy day and kills like nothing I've ever seen."

"Do I even want to know?" May asked.

"No," Odin answered. "You probably should though. If we find an infected village in Hoenn, well, in your position I'd want to know why everyone's skin was turning obsidian black and sloughing off their bones like sheets of rice paper. If ten men catch it, nine men die and the tenth languishes blind for the rest of his life."

"No cure?" asked the young woman, her face as white as her white armor.

"No ma'am," Odin answered. "You can vaccinate against it, but actually catch the stuff and you're gone. That's the problem... out in the more remote islands in the Orange chain, anywhere doctors don't usually go actually, the 'Bloody Pox' just waits to wipe out whole villages and catch a ride on an unsuspecting slouch back to civilization. It's been known to leave whole islands of thousands of people completely depopulated."

Taking a deep breath of the salty air, May resisted a shiver. "That's horrible. Have you ever seen it up close?"

Odin nodded. "I had the good fortune of being vaccinated young, so when the Pox hit my father's ship... I got to clean up the remains, sanitize the ship, and bring it into port."

Jaw slack, May stared at him. "Odin I'm so sorry, that must have been," she trailed off, a soreness stabbing into her chest as her companion watched the horizon without emotion. "I'm so sorry," she repeated. "That was this ship?"

Odin pointed across the deck of the ship towards the captain's quarters. "My father passed in that room there." He stopped as a look of horror spread across May's face. "Don't give it a second thought," he said. "I don't. Death's just as much a part of life as being born, no use worrying or dwelling."

May spent the rest of that first afternoon since the storm touring the Seaspear with Odin, assessing damage and gathering reports from the crewmen on their statuses. May left most of the talking to the young captain, perfectly content to allow the seaman to run the affairs aboard his own ship, though she made every effort to note the policies and procedures that came up during the tour.

Stopping in the engine room, a cramped and dim chamber crowded by cables running across the floor and filled with the smell of hot copper and iron, May watched as Odin addressed two of the frigate's engineers. _He knows this ship like the back of his hand_, May thought as Odin and the engineers exchanged a great deal of numbers and pointed to the cables running here and there before chattering on about power generation and thermal to electric efficiency.

Odin nodded, his face bearing a satisfied expression. "Excellent work keeping the salts from freezing during the storm," said the captain as the pair of crewmen saluted him. "I knew you boys were good but that's impressive. Let's focus on keeping the noble metal buildup in the pipes to an absolute minimum until we reach our next stop, cleaning that out in the middle of the ocean would be dangerous and we don't need to shut down for as long as it would take. Understood?"

Both engineers dropped their salutes enthusiastically. "Yes sir," they acknowledged in perfect unison.

May paused in her inspection of the engines and turned to the crewman, both of whom she noticed were watching her look around the room.

"Question ma'am?" the taller of the engineers probed, returning his hand to his chest to salute the young savant.

Her earlier conversation with Odin sticking in the front of her mind, May pointed to the massive engine cases that consumed most of the lower deck's floorspace. "Ensign Keller, wasn't it? Tell me about the engine," she said calmly, a subdued smile on her lips. "I'd like to know a little more about the Seaspear and how you keep it running."

The taller engineer, a burly character with a complexion like raw dough cleared his throat and glanced between the captain and the flotilla commander. "Yes ma'am," he said, visibly pulling himself together and beginning to motion to the massive engine cases. "Well basically Seaspear runs off an experimental Thorium reactor. It's specially designed for naval applications and calling it only top of the line would be an insult. The reactor itself started out as a proof-of-concept that the boss back in Viridian thought had enough potential to stick it on a boat and see how things went."

May followed along as Keller walked her to a display panel showing several numbers and red and green bar graphs that monitored the heat, pressure, and other variables within the engine. "Essentially," the engineer continued, "Seaspear was a great ship when Rocket co-developed it with the Orange Island Navy back in the day, but it was the modularity with which the ship was designed which made outfitting it with the L-F-T-R power plant possible, and it's the power plant that makes her absolutely amazing. Seaspear generates as much power as a small city, won't need to refuel for the next fifty years, and has the capacity to serve as an emergency power supply for other vessels that lose power."

May nodded along. "Very impressive," she said, reaching out and shaking the engineer's hand after he very briefly paused as if to make sure his commander had actually extended the gesture. "I'll be joining the crew for meals this evening and I'd like very much to discuss Seaspear's potential to serve as a mobile base of operations then, assuming you'd eat with me," she added.

Keller nodded, a smile creeping across his features. "Yes ma'am," he said. "I'll save you a spot. Looking forward to it ma'am."

Both engineers saluted. May, as she and Odin turned to leave, heard them chattering amongst themselves with pleasant surprise that the flotilla's commander would bother to stop by and personally talk to them. The young savant looked to her companion as they ascended the ladder that carried them up to one of the upper decks. "How was that?" she called up to him as Odin lead on.

The sandy-haired youth nodded and gave her a quick thumb's up as they reached the top of the ladder, finding themselves in a steel hall full of tight clusters of doors. "A little awkward," he smiled at her, "but not bad. Keep it up and you'll win some friends yet."

May grinned and started to respond, but stopped short and froze as the sound of a horn blaring high overhead stopped her in her tracks. "One long blast," she muttered. "One short. A distressed ship in the vicinity?"

Odin turned and May walked quickly beside him towards the light at the end of the hall. "Odin," she said, wincing as she stepped back into the sunlight, "assemble the trainers and be ready for anything."

Again the horn sounded overhead, blown by a trainer soaring in circles over the Seaspear atop a Pidgeot. Some dozen people hustled about the deck of the ship as May split off from the captain, bound for the bow of the ship as Odin walked for the bridge. The young savant waited, her single pokeball in her hand as the Rocket trainer on the Pidgeot aimed his mount for the ship and descended towards her. Talons clattering, the massive bird landed on the Seaspear and its trainer, a young man in black and red, hopped down, still brandishing a bronze horn in one hand.

May walked forward as the trainer saluted. "Any particular reason you're using a horn like that over the perfectly good radio we issued you?" May looked the trainer over.

Straightening up as he fastened the archaic instrument to his belt, the trainer removed his helmet and shook out his long, red hair. "No ma'am," he said abruptly, tapping the little earpiece clipped to the side of his head with one thumb. "I radioed several times but no one responded and all I got was some kind of high-pitched static. It's some kind of interference; I couldn't get in contact with any of the ships on any channel."

May nodded. "Acknowledged," she said as a number of other crewman arrived. "What did you see?"

The trainer, armored from his neck to his boots, walked to the ship's railing and pointed at a spot on the horizon. "We've got one ship dead in the water, about thirteen clicks out. From bow to stern she's about three-hundred fifty meters long. I didn't see any structural damage but she's not moving."

May raised an eyebrow. "That's the biggest-ass ship I've ever heard of," she said. "Anyone onboard?"

The trainer shook his head. "Not that I saw on a flyby ma'am," he said. "Just a very big, very dead ship."

Both the scout and the savant turned as Odin and another officer arrived, though the captain spoke first. "Radios are down," he said, out of breath. "There's some kind of interference," he looked around at the other officers and trainers around him. "Nobody stopped to think that, maybe, I would have liked to know that something as important as my radios being down."

The officer walking beside the captain cleared his throat, stone-faced. "Sorry sir, they went down less than fifteen minutes ago."

Odin glared at the young officer. "No excuse," he said. "Keep me in the loop."

Everyone present at the bow of the ship flinched and several cursed quite loudly as sharp screeches shrieked over their radio earpieces. Most of those around, including May, tore the tools from their ears and held them aside. Before anyone could speak, a loud thumping shook the ship. May turned and looked at the vessels surrounding the Seaspear as their bridge lights dimmed and flickered out. From the ships all around her the shouting voices of crewman rose and fell, declaring that they were losing power. Odin immediately began barking orders and his subordinates responded with disciplined and quick action, hustling about readying to disseminate as much as information to the other ships as possible.

Watching the bridge lights onboard the Seaspear, May remained fixed on the deck, unmoving and breathing only a little as the incandescent bulbs inside the ship's command center continued glowing. Several minutes passed and a number of messengers arrived onboard the Seaspear from the other ships in the flotilla as each captain sought to figure out the situation, May kept watching, waiting to see if the bridge lights would go out. "Why aren't we losing power?" she asked at length.

Odin stopped in the middle of relaying an order, looking between May and the bridge. "I don't know," he said, voice shot through with worry. "I've never seen anything like this before. Everyone's telling me the other ships, all of them, have completely lost power. The flotilla's dead in the water right now."

May shook her head. "We're not," she said. "Odin," she went on, "what do you want to bet that the radios going dead and the flotilla going cold are related to that other ship out there?"

The young captain paused and looked between the horizon and the lazily descending sun. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

May looked to the speck sitting on ocean's horizon some miles ahead and stared at it for a long moment, her mind turning over. "Something's out there," she muttered, glancing to the scout trainer. "Did you see the colours the ship flew?" she asked.

Clasping his hands behind his back, the scout nodded his head. "Yes ma'am: two white bones splintered and crossed to form a capitol 'A' on a blue field."

Swallowing the lump in her throat, May stepped back. "I don't recognize the symbol."

Odin spoke up. "I do. That's Team Aqua's sigil," he said, now quite calm, "which makes sense because they're the only ones who could possibly build a ship that large. What they're doing this far from home is beyond me though."

Waiting a minute and folding her arms across her chest, May stared at the sky in thought as the clouds began to take on a distinctly orange hue. "Odin," she said at last, turning to the young captain of the Seaspear. "Send messengers to the other ships and have each captain send over two of their best trainers. While we've still got power you're going to take us to that Aqua ship and we're going to have a look around." She stopped and looked to the east. "I suspect that whatever's interfering with our flotilla's on that ship."

Saluting and bowing, Odin acknowledged the order and turned to relay it to his subordinates, barking at the top of his lungs before turning and making for the bridge of the Seaspear.

Moments later May stood at the bow of the ship, flanked and followed by no fewer than two dozen trainers in Team Rocket's red and black armor as the Seaspear sliced through the waves, carrying its passengers east. Watching intently as the speck on the horizon grew and expanded into what looked like a small metal island jutting out of the sea, May tapped her foot on the deck. "Soldier," she turned to a trainer who wore armor completely obscuring his features and half a dozen pokeballs at his belt as the Seaspear sailed within a hundred meters of the dead Aqua ship. "Go to Odin. Tell him to bring us up alongside the ship and then have him meet us down here."

The trainer bowed and turned away, disappearing up the stairs to the ship' bridge. A few seconds later the Seaspear jerked and began to turn ninety degrees in the water as her engines idled and then kicked into reverse. Odin appeared on the bridge's balcony, shouting orders for the tug teams to bring them up alongside the ship. Immediately four trainers on the deck loosed their Pokémon, each summoning an aquatic creature in a blinding flash of white light. The four trainers, one working with his Starmie, two with their Seakings, and one with his Feraligatr affixed themselves with heavy ropes to their Pokémon and then tied the ropes off around great steel beams fixed to the deck of the Seaspear. Diving overboard, the trainers and their Pokémon splashed into the ocean and tugged the ropes taut.

Slowly then, the Seaspear inched through the water towards the silent ship as the trainers on deck watched and waited. Minutes later, just as the sun touched down on the horizon, the Seaspear ground to a halt against the Aqua vessel. The tug team trainers riding the Seakings handed their ropes off to the trainer with the Feraligatr and the soldier with the Starmie before returning their seafaring Pokémon to their pokeballs and grabbing hold of ropes lowered down for them from the deck of the Seaspear. The two remaining trainers then exploded from the water with their ropes, the Starmie floating gracefully up to the deck of the other ship while the Feraligatr stretched out its claws and latched onto the side of the steel ship, climbing upwards and joining his teammate on the deck of the ostensibly abandoned ship where they tied off their ropes and fixed the Seaspear alongside the other ship.

May craned to look upwards, estimating the top deck of the other ship to be no less than thirty feet higher than the top deck of the Seaspear. "Big-ass ship indeed," she muttered, scanning the side of the ship for its name. "Trident of Vengeance?" she read aloud, seeing the collection of faded and chipping letters painted on the side of the ship near its bow. "No taste in naming I suppose." She turned to the trainers gathered behind her as the two soldiers on the Trident of Vengeance's deck took several rope ladders from their packs and threw them down to the deck of the Seaspear. "Alright," the savant in her white and gold armor called out. "Split into teams of six and search the ship from bow to stern for anything that could be jamming our radios or interfering with the flotilla's engines. No hero business, you're each too valuable to lose so if you run into trouble you're to fall back to the nearest other group and retreat to the Seaspear. Am I clear?"

The gathered trainers saluted and answered in unison. "Yes ma'am," they shouted.

Odin likewise saluted as he stepped up beside May. "Yes ma'am," he answered, his voice far more subdued than the others as the rest of the trainers rushed to the rope ladders and began climbing towards the deck of the Trident of Vengeance. "What do you expect to find onboard?" he asked quietly as he and May waited their turn at the ladders.

Shrugging, the savant looked upward. "I'm not sure," she said. "I'd be willing to bet whatever it is, is some kind of electronic weapon. Of all the ships in the fleet, only Seaspear's engines are completely analogue, all the other ships rely on digital mechanisms to function. And, of all the ships in the fleet, only Seaspear is unaffected by whatever this electronic weapon might be." She walked forward and grabbed ahold of the ladder, beginning her assent as Odin climbed behind her.

Climbing the creaking ropes Odin glanced over his shoulder at his pack. "Well, whatever we're dealing with," he grunted, "I've got to say sort-of I resent being the one who has to carry the lead-lined box you want to drag along."

Reaching the deck and joining up with their four escorts as the rest of the teams spread out across the deck of the derelict ship, May and Odin each took their pokeballs from their belts. Dozens of flashes of white light about the deck signaled the arrival of as many Pokémon, with Odin calling on his growling Houndoom and silently observing Honchkrow. May likewise dropped her pokeball, kneeling down as a chittering Torchic emerged from the light and looked up at her. She picked up the little Pokémon and let it sit on her outstretched arm as she and Odin and the four other trainers walked to one of the many hatches fixed in the deck.

Kneeling by the hatch and straining with effort, Odin heaved up on the hatch without so much as budging it. May cleared her throat and one of the Rocket trainers, a burly man accompanied by an equally burly Machoke in turn cleared his throat. The Machoke clapped its hands together and leaned down, gripping the hatch's handles as Odin stepped back. Pulling up with seemingly little effort, the musclebound Pokémon pried the hatch completely free of its hinges, stepped aside, and dropped the heavy steel door clear of the new hole in the deck.

Odin grimaced and May moved forward, holding the Torchic out. "Mind giving us a little light," said the savant. The feathered Pokémon gave itself a quick shake and, cooing quietly, began glowing like a torch, casting enough light down the hole for the gathered trainers to plainly see that it did not end at the next deck down, but in fact continued farther down than the twenty or so feet of light provided by May's Torchic could illuminate. "Maybe a little more light?" May prompted. Her Torchic cooed again and, chattering with effort, began glowing with a more intense light that, reaching the bottom of the shaft before them, clearly illuminated a partially flooded hallway several decks down.

Shifting her Pokémon to her shoulder, May turned around and put her foot on the ladder. "Ladies first," she smirked, loosening her grip on the bars enough to slide down into the darkness before Odin or the other trainers could protest. The young savant splashed down in the hall some forty feet down, finding herself up to her waist in the freezing saltwater and looking around.

Odin leaned over the edge of the hatch. "See anything?" he called out to her, trying to keep his voice quiet enough to avoid disturbing any unaware enemy but loud enough that she could actually hear him.

Waiting to answer, May pivoted around as her Torchic threw off its light and glared into the darkness alongside its trainer. "Actually yeah," May called back, her voice uneasy. "Odin, get down here."

Instantly the sandy-haired youth returned his Pokémon to their pokeballs and turned around. He dropped down the shaft, gripping the ladder only tight enough to avoid complete freefall. "What's down there?" Odin called down to May without stopping or turning around to look until he splashed down beside her, the four other trainers in hot pursuit.

May gestured down the hall, her face as white as her armor. "Lots of bodies," she muttered, "that's what."

Following May's direction, Odin gasped when he spotted the dozen or so dead humans, each floating face down in the frigid water. Nevertheless, he walked forward as the other Rocket trainers arrived and flanked their commander, taking hold of one of the corpses and rolling it over for a better look. Recoiling from the body, Odin raised a hand in front of his face and sucked in a breath before turning away and dropping his hands on to his knees as though he intended to vomit.

Walking forward, May examined the corpse and likewise had to turn away, mirroring her second-in-command and putting a hand before her mouth. "Well that's," she fought back her gag reflex, "pretty awful."

"No shit," Odin turned back to examine the eyeless corpse. "What could have done this?" he asked.

Wading through the water, glad her hardsuit was watertight but still shivering against the cold, May rolled another of the corpses over, then walked forward to a third and repeated her cursory examination. "No idea," she answered. "This wasn't predation or the work of scavengers though. These men's' eyes literally exploded in their skulls and from the looks of things," she glanced carefully down the ear canal of one of the bodies, "so did their eardrums."

Odin thought a moment. "Some kind of sonic weapon maybe," he said. "It would explain the burst eyes and eardrums."

Turning to her agent, May folded her arms before her chest and tapped her fingers on her elbows. "That would have to be one hell of a sonic weapon."

"An especially powerful Tentacruel maybe," Odin offered. "I've seen smaller ones use supersonic attacks to stun prey with burst eardrums before."

One of the guards stepped forward, accompanied by his Machoke. "Ma'am, I'm no coroner," he said, "but shouldn't there be some decomposition? This water's cold but unless these men died within the past few hours there should be at least some sign of decomposition. These men, aside from the obvious, look pretty much intact."

May and Odin glanced at each other but the latter spoke first. "He's right," said the youth. "We should proceed with extreme caution."

Wading their way down the pitch-dark hallway, the trainers eventually made upon a fork in their path. Each studying the sign at the end of the hall, Odin spoke up. "This isn't any language I know," he looked at the letters painted on the wall. "Can anyone read it?"

The rocket escorts shook their heads but May stepped forward. "It's a dialect from Orre," she muttered, as much to herself as to anyone present, "their royal language. I recognize it from my time with Professor Elm… but why," she turned to the men around her, "why would a ship from Hoenn, with its external markings written in Common Kantonese use an Orrean dialect for its internal signs?"

"A joint engineering venture?" one of the Rockets offered.

May shook her head. "No," she said under her breath. "Orre does not play well with others. This," she paused, realization dawning on her face, "this ship is part of a false-flag operation. Its heading suggests a course aimed away from Hoenn, not towards it. I think the Orreans were trying to smuggle something back to Orre."

"On a ship this big?" Odin asked. "Hardly subtle."

May shrugged. "Maybe they were trying to smuggle something big, or a lot of littler somethings. Anyway," she pointed down the hallway to their left. "The sign says a laboratory is this way, and I imagine that we'll find whatever we're looking for there."

Following the hall until it ended at an especially heavy looking bulkhead May assured her compatriots was labelled "Laboratory" in Orrean, the trainers paused as Odin walked forward and tried the door. When he discovered the bulkhead was locked, he stepped aside and motioned for the Machoke to move in. Grinning and clapping its hands together, the muscled Pokémon stepped up and gripped the large wheel set in the center of the bulkhead. Grunting with effort, veins bulging on its grey arms, the Pokémon screwed its eyes shut and put all its weight into turning the wheel. As the sound of metal grinding on metal filled the hall, the Pokémon's hands budged as the red wheel began to rotate and the bars holding the bulkhead in place began to shift out of their slots.

Stepping back, its task complete, the Machoke sighed and dropped its arms. Patting his Pokémon on the back as he passed, the trainer walked forward and pushed the bulkhead open. Pressing his body against the door as it rotated inward he stepped into the room beyond, the trainer lifted a hand to shield his eyes against the intense blue light flooding out of the room and into the hall beyond. "Found something," called the Rocket.

May and Odin made their way forward and into the laboratory as the other trainers remained in the hall outside. Both commanders could only stare in wonder when they spotted the source of the blue light: a brilliant sapphire sphere resting on the laboratory's floor beneath a few feet of water. Making her way over to it, May handed her Torchic off to Odin, took a deep breath, and knelt beneath the frigid water, reaching for the orb. Eyes locked on the glowing object, May extended her hand for the sphere, itself only a few inches across but glowing brightly enough to clearly illuminate the large room even from beneath the water. As soon as her fingers touched its glassy surface, the light dimmed so quickly May almost lost sight of the little ball while her eyes adjusted.

Closing her fingers around the orb, May stood up and broke the surface of the water, gasping in a deep breath of air. She held the still dimly glowing orb up for everyone else to see before reaching up with her free hand to wipe her soaked hair out of her face. "I think," she said, eyes locked on the orb as it flickered and filled the room around them with a sound not unlike the singing of a wind chime, "we might have found something. Odin," she called, snapping the captain's attention away from the hypnotizing ball of light, "the box."

Odin reached behind his back and produced the lead-lined container, cracking it opening towards May. A few seconds passed and May stood there, her eyes locked on the glowing blue orb. Odin called her name but the young savant didn't so much as flinch. A second time Odin called May's name, but still she only stood still as stone, looking at the glowing blue orb in her hand as the light within the sphere shifted and rolled around on itself like clouds of luminescent steam within a glass ball.

"May!" Odin shouted.

Shaking as though waking from a dream and looking around in surprise, May's gaze settled on her second-in-command. "What?" she stammered. "What's wrong?"

Again Odin held the box out to her. "You spaced out there for a minute," he answered. "I'm going to recommend we put that orb away and get the hell on with our investigation."

May nodded. "Right," she said, popping open the pouch at her belt and dropping the glowing blue orb inside. "Let's get out of this lab."

Eyes fixed on his commander's belt pouch, Odin stepped in May's way, still holding the lead-lined steel box out to her. "Ma'am," he said, "until we can have someone take a look at it I'm going to recommend holding the artifact in a more secure container."

May paused a moment, glaring at the young captain as an air of tension filled the room. Both trainers' eyes narrowed as they stared at one another as though a cloud had passed between them through which either had to struggle to see. May caught her lip curling up almost in a snarl to bear her teeth, but quickly shook her head and retrieved the orb from her pouch. "Of course," she said, dropping the orb in the box and jerking her hand away as Odin snapped it shut and closed the latch. "You're right. Let's get a move on."

The six trainers gave the lab another brief once-over, with Odin locating and cleaning out a glass cabinet full of expensive medical supplies. Upon the completion of their ransacking the room, May lead the trainers under her command back into the flooded hallway, but stopped as the radio earpiece in her pocket chirped to life. Quickly fitting the device to the side of her head, May pressed two fingers to the transmitter in her ear.

For a moment only static buzzed over the airwaves until a voice reached the young savant. "Commander," called the man on the other end of the line. "Commander May, this is lieutenant Rickby in command of the Seaspear."

Motioning for everyone to wait, May fiddled with her earpiece for a second. "This is May," she said. "What's going on Rickby?"

"I'm not sure ma'am," the voice buzzed. "I've just started receiving radio reports that the rest of the flotilla is back up and running. Everyone's engines seem to have just come back online like nothing was ever wrong."

May paused and looked at the box poking out of Odin's pack. "Really," she said. "Well that's good news. Rickby, tell the rest of the flotilla to meet the Seaspear at the Trident of Vengeance. Tell everyone to be ready to render aide or strip the ship bare depending on whether or not we find survivors."

"Understood," answered the man on the other end. "If there's nothing else, Rickby out."

Odin looked to his commander. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Communications and engines are back up with the rest of the flotilla," May answered. "Let's get topside and-" May stopped short as the radio in her ear buzzed again. "One second," she said, turning away to answer the call. "This is May," she said.

The radio hissed in her ear for a second, the voice coming through suffering a great deal of distortion. "This is Captain Jorgenson, my squad and I were exploring a starboard hall on sublevel nine," said the voice on the other end. "Commander, I think we found what wasted the Aquan sailors."

May turned to Odin, ordering him to grab the map of the ship they'd retrieved from the laboratory. "Give me your location," she called over the radio. "We'll be there momentarily."

Rushing as quickly as they could through the waist deep freezing water, May and her team followed the map and made good on the Jorgenson's directions, coming moments later across the other team of Rocket trainers where they'd held a post outside a secure door that looks like it had been ripped from its hinges. As May and Odin arrived, one of the men in black and red armor moved forward to meet them.

Saluting, the Rocket inclined his head. "Commander," he said, motioning towards the door as the rest of his squad backed away from the entrance. "Glad you could make it, have a look at this." He lead May through the door and into what looked like a security room, with a pair of chairs in the center of the room surrounded by television monitors that were all either switched off or buzzing with static. "We happened across this room within minutes of breaching the entrance," said Captain Jorgenson, sitting in one of the chairs and typing at the keyboard beneath one of the monitors that responded by turning black and displaying the commands typed by the captain. "Most of the security footage looks to have been destroyed, but I did manage to reconstruct a few things, including the ship's manifest and," he paused and stopped typing, "this."

Jorgenson clicked a final button and sat back in the chair as a number of the monitors flashed to life. On one of the monitors May recognized the laboratory in which she had stood only minutes before, in which two men were standing around an apparatus of wires and metal rods. Suspended inside the apparatus by some invisible force, May saw the blue orb glowing and shining just as it had done when she found it. One of the men pressed a button on the device on the apparatus and a bolt of electricity leapt between one of the exposed wires and the blue orb.

Clearing his throat, Jorgenson spoke up. "Nothing happens for a few minutes," he said, pressing a key that fast-forwarded all of the video feeds, "until this." He lifted his finger and allowed the displays to resume playing at normal speeds. At that point the two men experimenting with the orb removed it from the apparatus as warning sirens and emergency lights began blaring and flashing. The ship pitched hard to one side, throwing both men on the display hard to the ground. One looked to hit his head on a cabinet and dropped, unmoving.

Pointing to another screen, Jorgenson drew May's attention away. "And here," he said, motioning to a screen displaying an enormous loading bay at the forward end of the ship, "is where things get really interesting."

At the extreme end of the loading bay, which must have run two thirds the length of the ship and stood more than sixty feet from floor to ceiling, May saw two heavy steel doors at which's purpose she could only guess. The doors buckled beneath some great impact and began to slide open, allowing ocean water to flood into the bay at an astonishing rate. Tentacles, each one no less than two feet in diameter and perhaps a hundred times that long slid through the bay doors and forced them wide open, flooding the bay with water as a pair titanic Tentacruel, either one larger than any May had ever seen, crawled into the bay with the enormous doors slamming shut behind them. The two Pokémon instantly began thrashing about, slamming their tentacles into the walkways which remained above the waterline lining the bay and crushing the trainers and Pokémon running out to meet them in combat.

"Meanwhile," Jorgenson drew May's attention to a third monitor, this one showing the perspective of a camera watching the main deck of the ship from the bridge tower. As the ship pitched hard beneath the weight of the Tentacruel and the water flooding in, several crewmen loosed Pokémon to fight as a Gyarados, this one also larger than any of its species May had ever seen, rose out of the ocean and sprayed the deck with a blast of water under such pressure men and beasts exploded into clouds of gore when it struck them. The battle raged for only a few seconds before the top deck had been scoured clean of life and the Gyarados, seemingly in a rage, slithered up onto the deck to look for prey.

May's eyes grew wide and she stammered in disbelief as the water around the ship seemed to boil for a second before countless Staryus exploded from the water and latched onto the side of the ship. Such was the weight of the Pokémon that the ship actually began to sink beneath their collective bulk. She glanced from the corner of her eye at Odin as the boy stepped up beside her. Suddenly, the thought he carried the blue orb on his person made her stomach dance uneasily beneath her ribs.

"And the grand finale," Jorgenson nodded to the monitor where the two Tentacruel still in the ship had cleared the bay of stragglers. Both Pokémon reared up on their tentacles and opened their beaks wide. Instantly all sound coming from the monitor ceased and the glass lenses of all the cameras still functioning at this point cracked from one end to the other.

May leaned to Odin. "Looks like you were right about a sonic weapon," she said, not peeling her eyes away from the screen where she saw the remaining scientist in the laboratory threw his hands up on either side of his head. He ran into the hall outside his lab and jerked once as though struck by something heavy. As he spun away from the camera, May could see blood and bits of flesh spraying from the eye sockets and ears of the victim of the Tentacruels' attacks. "Yikes," she muttered under her breath as the feed ended and the monitors all went dead. "That's awful."

Jorgenson turned to his commander. "Ma'am," he said. "I went over the manifest to see what the men in the lab were experimenting with since the attack seemed to stem from them messing with that weird orb, but I didn't see anything matching that description…" he trailed off.

May thought a moment, staring at the dead monitors. "What about the Tentacruel?" she asked. "Are they still in the bay?"

"No," Jorgenson said. "Well yes," he corrected himself. "They're dead though. I sent one man to investigate and he came back reporting that it looked like their sonic attacks actually killed each other."

Turning to look at one another, May and Odin went silent for a minute, though when one broke the silence, May spoke first. "Get everyone off this ship," she said curtly, looking between Odin and Jorgenson. "Get everyone back on the Seaspear and let's get the hell out of here. I don't care what kind of treasure these people might have been transporting, but I'm not going to stick around to find out. We need to get out of here before anymore Tentacruel show up or that Gyarados comes back."

Jorgenson saluted. "Very good ma'am," he said, turning to his men and ordering them to split up to deliver the message to the other teams that they were to evacuate to the Seaspear as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, Odin stepped forward and put his hand on May's shoulder. "What about the orb May," he said in barely more than a whisper. "You're not planning on bringing it with us?" asked the sandy-haired sailor.

"We can't leave it here," May answered. "If it has the power to call down all this trouble there's no way I'm letting Orre, or anyone else for that matter, get their hands on it." She stepped back and spoke normally. "Now let's get back to the Seaspear. I want to be back on our way to Hoenn ten minutes ago."

Odin turned to follow her. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he muttered. "Are you sure you don't want me to dump the orb overboard? I say we'd all be safer with it at the bottom of the ocean."

A smirk flitting across her lips, May shook her head. "Not a chance," she said, a flicker of sapphire light sparking in her eyes for only the briefest second. When she went on it was in a voice too quiet for even Odin's keen ears to hear. "It's mine," she whispered to herself. "Mine."


	3. Shelly - Chapter 1 - Under The Bridge

AN: Hello, hello, everyone and thanks for reading. I'm glad everyone seems to be enjoying the ride thus far, early as it is in the story.  
>No real notes today, except perhaps a warning. A friend suggested I advise those with active imaginations and weak stomachs to skip the middle of the chapter. Oh well.<br>Peace!

* * *

><p>Shelly – Chapter One – Water Under The Bridge<p>

The sound of mingled screams, animalistic grunting, and moans of both genuine pain and artificial pleasure wafted down the hall leading to the back of the large building and filled the entry chamber of the whorehouse with a dull and constant humming. The noontime sun shone into the chamber only through breaks in the wooden beams nailed over the building's numerous windows, or through gaps in the bars welded to the exterior of the whorehouse's structure to further secure the windows, so when the establishment's main door swung open and light flooded into the room Shelly, from where she sat on a musty couch in the corner of the room, reflexively turned away and shielded her eyes. The sound of soft footsteps patting across the carpeted floor reaching her ears, the young woman on the couch sighed and shook herself from her little nap to watch the scene unfold before her.

Lowering her three-fingered hand and sitting up on the couch, Shelly rested her elbows on her knees and watched as a woman, no older than nineteen or twenty at the latest she guessed, with long hair the color of fresh wheat entered the establishment, trailing behind her a young girl whom she led by the hand. The child she guessed to be perhaps nine years of age. Crossing the filthy carpet to the desk at the opposite end of the room, the woman and the girl stood before the man sitting behind that desk and the three burly security guards who stood behind him brandishing clubs and knives. The ensuing conversation failed to reach Shelly's ears, but she watched with only mild interest as the woman argued with the man behind the desk while the young girl, who bore a great deal more than a passing resemblance to the woman, cowered in fear behind her mother's leg as if to escape the leering gazes of the armed men staring at her.

Arriving at some kind of agreement the man at the desk, a smile cracking his swarthy features and dark lips to reveal yellowed and rotten teeth, reached inside his tattered jacket and drew out a few silver coins, ten, Shelly thought she spotted, which he counted on the desk before handing them to the woman. One of the security guards then walked around the desk and grabbed the young girl by her yellow hair, yanking her away from her mother as the child began screaming in horror. The woman with the silver coins clutched the money to her chest and backed away as the guard restrained the child, turning without another word and making for the door as the girl screamed.

Standing and moving forward, the man with the rotten teeth smacked the girl on the back of the head, silencing her instantly save a few quiet hiccupping sobs. "Quiet," he growled at her, just loud enough for Shelly to hear, "or I'll give you a real reason to cry and a bloody mouth with it."

Closing her amber eyes and shaking her head, Shelly folded her bare arms over her chest and leaned back into the couch. "Groudon's Breath," she swore quietly as, at the order of the man with the rotten teeth, the burly security guard slung the little girl over his shoulder and disappeared with her down the hall. "Animals," Shelly growled, listening as the sounds of the whorehouse continued floating through the building to her ears. She sat there several more minutes as a number of men and women, each seemingly seedier than the last, came and went from the establishment, more than a few of them leering at her as they passed. Each time one let their gaze linger too long though Shelly would merely draw their attention with a glance to the angry red "A" recently branded into the flesh of the back of her right hand and then to the two pokeballs clipped to her belt next to the wickedly serrated combat knife strapped to her bare thigh.

Spotting her mark, Shelly stood and walked forward, spreading her arms in greeting. "Finally," she called as the enormous man in ragged shorts and a silk shirt almost too small to contain him emerged from a door roughly halfway down the main hall. "I was beginning to think I had the wrong address, or that maybe you'd died in there."

The burly man walked up to the proprietor at the desk and dropped a number of coins on the counter before turning back to shelly and extending his hand, on the back of which a wicked scar in the shape of a capital 'A' shone for all to see. "The way these whores treat me," he said in a boisterous baritone, "it's a wonder I can still walk." He smiled and firmly shook Shelly's hand. "You must be the new girl, the runaway princess from-"

"Yes, that's me," Shelly cut him off, her tone polite despite the edge in her words. "You must be the infamous Matt I've heard so much about," she said, "The Butcher of Bomba Island?"

A wide grin splitting his face from ear to ear, Matt bowed low. "The one and only," he crowed. "And," Matt patted the cleaver hanging from his belt, "Archie's second-in-command."

Shelly stepped back and looked him over, making no effort to hide the action. "Now, I was told that there was an assignment with my name on it," she went on. "Something about dealing with a cell that's double dealing?"

Still smirking, Matt jerked his head towards the door and walked for the exit. "Come with me," he said, pushing the heavy wooden slab open and gesturing for Shelly to follow, closing the door behind them both when she did. Stepping out into the blinding sunlight and taking a moment to get his bearings, Matt looked up towards the cloudless sky. "Beautiful day," he shouted, raising his hands over his head to stretch, groaning loudly as he did. "Another gorgeous day in lovely Lilycove City!"

A grimace settling on her features, Shelly held back a sneer. "Yes," she muttered, looking first to her left and then right, down the noisy street as merchants set up in stalls called out their wares and beggars sitting alongside the gutter called out for alms, "lovely. The assignment?"

Matt put his fingers to his lips and loosed a piercing whistle as a buggy drawn by a pair of scrawny boys rattled by them. "Right," he said flicking a coin to the taller of the swarthy boys, climbing into the buggy, and motioning for Shelly to join him on the seat. "Corner of fifth and Wayside," he barked to the boys when Shelly climbed into the buggy, wilting like a thirsty plant as she sat in the shaded seat. "It's come to Archie's attention," Matt said, his voice low, "that one of his squads right here in Lilycove has been taking bribes from a Magma agent to ignore a pair of spies that have been reporting on our ship movements for almost a month now."

Thinking for a moment as Matt went quiet, Shelly looked out the side of the buggy as the claustrophobic city rolled by one congested block at a time. "Does this whole city," she grumbled, "smell of nothing but old sweat and dead fish?"

Matt inclined his head, though his tone bore a mocking edge. "Sorry it isn't to your liking, your ladyship. This is your operation though, I'm just here to observe how you deal with these traitors and give a report to Archie," he went on. "Have any questions about your assignment?"

Shelly smiled. "I'm touched," she said. "Archie trusts me to handle the whole squad of traitors by myself?"

Shrugging, Matt leaned back in his seat. "There's only three of them," he said. "Besides, your," he searched a moment for the right word, "exploits from your time in the Littleroot cell reached even Archie's attention, so we have every confidence you'll be more than a match for three lowlifes."

"Ah," Shelly cooed. "So Archie's not concerned with whether or not I can handle the traitors. He wants to see _how_ I handle them."

"Your grasp of the obvious," Matt said, "is nothing short of inspiring." He trailed off, looking over the lean girl in the seat next to him. "What happened there?" he asked, spotting and nodding to the missing ring and little fingers on Shelly's left hand.

Shelly raised one shoulder casually and dropped it dismissively. "You'll see," she said quietly as the buggy rolled up at the eastern end of a busy intersection.

The two Aqua agents stepped down from the buggy and Shelly, reaching into her tattered blue vest and drawing out a few copper coins, tipped the two boys without a word. Looking around a moment, she sized up the buildings surrounding the streets and the numerous people bustling about the intersection before letting her gaze settle on one particularly out of place little home. The single story building of red and brown brick could hardly have looked more lost among the multi-tiered complexes surrounding it, their lightly tanned plaster exteriors gleaming in the noonday sun. Shelly, staring at the building asked Matt if that was their target, to which the massively burly man beside her grunted in affirmation.

Without another word, Shelly reached to her belt, drawing a pokeball with her left hand and her combat knife with her right. Walking brazenly across the street she weaved between pedestrians and coaches alike before stopping in front of the closed wooden door to the little house and sniffing the air. "Opium," she smiled, detecting the unmistakable odor wafting along with the thin white smoke seeping through the cracks in the door, "this will be too easy." She dropped the pokeball to the ground where it snapped open and flooded the street around her with an intense white light that whirled around a moment before coalescing into a vaguely humanoid shape that stood about three feet tall. Reaching down and patting the grey-skinned Machop on the head, Shelly nodded to the door and picked the second pokeball from her belt as her Pokémon turned its attention to the task before it.

Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Shelly stepped back as her Pokémon charged forward and slammed its fist into the door just to the side of the brass handle. Snapping like glass twigs the hinges exploded and the door flew into the building like a missile, crashing into a table in the center of the room. Shelly whipped around the empty doorframe and threw her second pokeball to the ground as the still sailing door, the table, and glass hookah shattered into a cloud of splinters of wood and crystal as the two of the three figures lounging around the table screamed in shock. The third individual failed to make a sound before the corner of the tumbling table smashed into his skull and sent him reeling to the ground.

As both of the other men in their blue Team Aqua uniforms tried to get to their feet, Shelly lashed forward. She grabbed one man by his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back, pressing the point of her knife to his throat as the twisting of his arm turned his back to her. Meanwhile her pokeball snapped open and loosed a flood of white light into the room which instantly took shape. Howling its battle cry as it leapt from the cloud of light, a black-furred Mightyena stormed the room and, spotting its trainer, immediately turned its gaze on the trainer opposite her as he went for the pokeball at his belt.

Wrestling her man to his knees, pressing the knife against his throat with sufficient force to draw a drop of blood, Shelly whistled to her Mightyena. The canine's ears snapped back against its skull and it sprinted forward, tackled the drugged trainer to the ground, bit down on his neck and, snarling as it did, ripped the man's throat open with several wrenching jerks of its head. The Pokémon's victim failed to even scream, instead managing only to gurgle as red froth erupted from his mouth and blood spat from the dozens of holes torn in his neck. Shelly laced her fingers through her man's hair and gripped the trainer's head with a steely strength, jerking his gaze towards the carnage before him as her Mightyena bit down with such ferocity the corpse's spine snapped and its head lolled back.

Leaning down to whisper in his ear, Shelly spoke to her potential victim with an icy calm. "How do you like my Mightyena?" she asked as the Pokémon looked up from the corpse beneath it, the fur around its muzzle matted and completely soaked with red. "Quite the beauty isn't he?" she went on as the man before her shook where he knelt, his lip quivering. "Now, unless you want to contribute to the diet keeping his coat so sleek and glossy, you're going to tell me the names of the Magman spies you've been working with. Lie to me and I'll-"

"Jasmine and Frieda Tolouca!" screamed the Aquan trainer as Shelly's Mightyena stalked closer to him, growling and snarling. "You're looking for Jasmine and Frieda Tolouca! They're twin sisters living in the apartments on Conoway Street!" He struggled to turn his head enough to look at May from the corner of his eye, terror plain on his paling features. "Please, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Just don't kill me please!"

Turning only enough to glance to where Matt stood in the otherwise empty doorway, Shelly raised an eyebrow. Without a word, Matt shrugged nonchalantly and went back to examining and picking at the dirt beneath his fingernails, paying Shelly seemingly little mind as she turned back to the man helplessly beneath her.

Gripping his hair so tightly his scalp grew red in response, Shelly turned the man back to face her Mightyena as the Pokémon crossed the room and snarled right in his face. "You betrayed Team Aqua," she hissed in his ear. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't feed you to my dog in tiny pieces."

The trainer on his knees, a youth with brown hair and a dark face streaked with tears, broke down crying. "Please," he called out. "Don't kill me. I'll do anything!"

Shelly again raised an eyebrow. "Anything? Do you really mean that?" she asked, pausing and then throwing the trainer to the ground when he nodded. Folding her arms behind her back, she walked around the Aquan trainer and stood by her Mightyena, petting the Pokémon and running her hand through its fur. "I said the same thing once. I'm not from around here, you see. And back in my homeland parents had an interesting way of dealing with disobedient children. If, say, their daughter insisted she wanted to marry a boy they considered beneath their family they would take her, drill a hole through two fingers on her left hand, and chain her by the bones in those fingers to a stake on the beach until either predators or exposure claimed her."

From where he stood, Matt lifted his head and watched the proceedings with renewed interest as Shelly held out her left hand, its missing ring and little fingers plain to see. "Chained to the stake on that beach," Shelly said, very calmly, "I decided that I would do anything to survive." She flexed the stumps that remained of two of her fingers. "After I'd freed myself of the chains, I took to the ocean; without a boat, without supplies, without hope, I took to the waves, because I knew it was my only chance to survive." Shelly paused in her narrative. "What's your name boy?"

The boy before her stammered. "Ev-E-Evan," he managed to mutter. "My name's Evan Patel."

Putting her hand on his shoulder, Shelly knelt to his level. "Evan," she said. "When I said I would do anything to survive, I meant it," again she showed him the stumps on her left hand. "Prove to me you mean it as well, and I'll let you live." She stood and took a step back, folding her hands behind her back.

Staring at her a moment, Evan processed the demand, realization followed by horror dawning across his face a moment later. "You can't be serious," he gasped, tears streaming down his face as he looked up at the woman who didn't answer before looking down at his hand, his fingers already twitching in protest. "Please," he looked back up at Shelly. "Please, I swear I'll never betray Aqua again. Please, I swear it, I'll be loyal to the day I die."

Shelly nodded to his hand. "Prove it," she said. "Prove to me you'll do whatever it takes to survive," she watched him intently, not looking up to see Matt watching her and grinning ear to ear at the situation unfolding before him.

Evan hesitated a moment, face stretched tight as he looked down at the fingers on his left hand. Slowly he raised the hand and slipped his little finger between his teeth. The edges of his incisors pressing down on the fleshy digit, he waited a moment longer before pulling his hand from his mouth. "Can I at least borrow your knife?" he asked, looking at the serrated blade on Shelly's hip.

The woman in the blue miniskirt laughed once. "Do you think I had a knife?" she asked.

Evan's already morose features paled further, all color draining from his face as he slowly raised his little finger back to his mouth and placed it between his teeth.

Shelly cleared her throat. "You're going to want to go for both fingers at once," she said. "Trust me, once you get one the other is much harder. Take them at the same time."

Whimpering and closing his eyes, Evan knelt on the floor of the little house, shaking violently as he gripped his left ring and little finger in his teeth. Grunting as new tears formed at the corners of his eyes, Evan's jaw tightened but he failed to bite down any harder. "I can't do it," he cried, still holding his fingers between his teeth. "I don't think I can do it."

Sighing, Shelly shook her head. "Last chance Evan," she said. "Trust me; you don't want to disappoint me." She patted her Mightyena and the Pokémon stepped closer to the Aquan trainer, snarling hungrily.

Eyes going wide with terror, Evan sucked in a deep breath. "Alright!" he screamed, screwing his eyes tightly shut as the growling canine stepped back at Shelly's direction. "Alright I'll do it!" The boy leaned forward, reaching up with his free hand and taking his left hand by the wrist, holding it in place as he positioned his teeth over the bases of his two outermost fingers. Pausing just a second, his heart beating deafeningly in his ears, Evan screamed and bit down with all his strength. Two cracks followed by a noisy, wet popping filled the room. Lurching forward and screaming, Evan bit down again, blood spraying the ground beneath him and dripping out of his mouth. A third time he shrieked and bit down, this time the joints in his hand popped and his teeth snapped together. Evan jerked his hands, both soaked in blood and one now considerably smaller than the other, away from his face as he spit two bloody masses from his mouth which dangled from his left hand by thin strands of flesh. Moaning in pain he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the ground, cradling his left hand and crying.

Shelly stood by a second, a smile creasing her lips. "Congratulations," she looked down on the bloody mess before her. "Evan you've just shown me you deserve to live another day," she knelt by him as the boy moaned and she reached for his hand. Taking his mostly severed fingers in her hand she yanked them away, ripping the remaining ropes of skin keeping them attached. Again Evan howled in pain as Shelly looked down at the bloody digits in her palm. "This is your only second chance," she said, taking his right hand and putting the severed fingers in his grip, closing his hand around them even as his other hand continued spitting blood across the floor. "If you fail Team Aqua again," she went on, "you're going to wish that I'd fed you to my pooch. Now," she stood up and walked to the door where Matt stood in utter disbelief, "you be a good boy Evan, and clean yourself up. Head back to the main compound and tell them that I requested you be transferred to my unit, alright?"

From his place on the ground, Evan nodded, shivering as the Mightyena strutted by him to follow its master. "Yes ma'am," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Whatever you say."

Walking by her bulky escort and back into the blindingly lit street beyond, Shelly patted Matt's shoulder and motioned for him to follow as she climbed back into the waiting buggy drawn by the two beggar boys. She paused as Matt climbed up beside her before turning to face him. "Well?" she said. "How was that? Did I meet your expectation?"

Bursting out laughing, Matt slapped his knee and leaned back in his seat. "I've never seen anything like that before. Lady, you're a piece of work! I can see why Archie wanted to bring you onboard," he laughed a moment longer.

Shelly meanwhile leaned forward and tapped the shorter of the two boys. "Take us to the apartments on Conoway Street," she ordered, flashing a few copper coins before them. "Double-time."

Looking to his partner as the buggy set off down the busy street, Matt ceased laughing. "Wait," he said. "Where are we going? The base is on the coast."

"The apartments on Connoway," Shelly repeated. "I'd like to pay these two Magma spies a visit, there's two of them, so one head can go to Maxie, the other to Archie, my presents to both of them."

Matt laughed again. "Well aren't you the little overachiever," he said patronizingly. "Alright," let's take them out and _then_ we can head back to base. I'm getting hungry."

SC

Kneeling on the plush carpet before the elevated stage, Shelly rested her knuckles on the ground as a number of men in blue metal armor made their way into the chamber from a door in the back of the room. First among those filing in walked a tall man with bright blue eyes set in a rigid face covered in crisscrossing scars. Making his way across the stage he sat in the throne in its center, his chrome-lined armor clanking around him as he did.

The middle-aged man leaned forward, examining the kneeling woman before him while resting his elbows on his knees. "So," he said, his voice steady and deep, "Shelly, Matt tells me that you accomplished the mission I set forth for you with a, a tenacity and brutality he's never seen before. Impressing the Butcher of Bomba Island," he grinned and waved one finger through the air, "that would be no small feat for a seasoned agent, much less someone so young. You're most certainly to be congratulated."

Still staring at the ground beneath her hands, Shelly nodded. "Thank you, Master Archie," she called out.

The man in the chromed blue armor sat back in the richly upholstered throne, running one hand over the steel and silver beams making up its frame. "Matt also told me that you surpassed his expectation when you not only turned a traitor back to our cause, but went on to eliminate two Magma spies in our city." He paused and looked around at his entourage before turning his attention back to the woman kneeling on the sapphire carpet. "You've impressed me, girl," Archie said. "What would you have for your reward?"

Without hesitation, Shelly looked up. "I would continue to serve," she answered.

Sitting still a moment, Archie looked down from his throne on the woman in blue. For a moment his face twisted and he clasped his hands together. A moment later the man in the bandana burst out laughing, dropping back in the steel chair as his guffaws filled the room. "Good answer," he said after taking a moment to recompose himself, "too good an answer. Shelly, be honest with me. We're all friends here; we can be honest with one another. Tell me. What would you have from me?"

Pausing this time, Shelly stared at the ground, her face a blank mask. "There are two people," she stated at length, cautiously, as though she weighed every word before it left her lips. "My parents, a prince and princess of Orre," she looked up at Archie and met his frigid gaze without turning away. "I want them brought here before me, and I want to make them prove they'd do anything to survive." Her answer came cold and steady. "I would do to them what they made me do to myself."

Archie raised an eyebrow. "That's quite a request," he said plainly. "An Orrean prince and princess to be kidnapped and shipped a quarter of the way across the world. I'll tell you what, little runaway, I'll give you exactly what you asked for in exactly the order you asked for it. Continue to serve me, prove to Team Aqua that you are truly indispensable, that you can and will do anything for the family, and I will grant you your request. I'll bring your parents here and you can do with them what you will."

Bowing low, Shelly pressed her forehead to the ground. "Thank you, sir," she said. "You won't regret this."

Archie nodded and waved his hand dismissively. "Get up," he said. "Enough with the bowing and scraping. I don't know how things are done in Orre, besides being brutal enough to drive off someone like yourself, but here family members do not prostrate themselves before one another." He waited as Shelly got to her feet. "Now, I have an assignment for you, three actually."

Clapping her hands together, Shelly smiled wide. "Name the targets," she said.

"That's what I like to hear," Archie answered. "I want you to put a team together, pick sixteen men from any of my ranks. First, I'm sending you after something that was stolen from me, an artifact of ancient and immeasurable power, the Ocean Spirit. It takes the shape of a blue orb about the size of an apple, and it was recently stolen from right under our noses," he turned and glared at into the entourage behind him before turning back to Shelly. "Matt will brief you on the details, but my spies last reported that the orb was headed towards Slateport in the clutches of an Orrean spy named Gavos."

Shelly bit down, grinding her teeth for a moment as her lip curled into a silent snarl. "Consider it done," she said. "I already know exactly what I'm going to do to that spy. And the other assignments?"

Archie grinned. "I'm sure you do," he said. "My agents on Isla Comienzo have reported a flotilla of ships from Kanto landing on the island. Their leader has made no secret of the fact that she's coming here, to Hoenn, and by now they're likely less than a month away from landing on our doorstep. I want you to head west and prepare a reconnaissance mission for when they arrive. As soon as those foreigners arrive I want to know everything there is to know about them. If the opportunity presents itself to take out their leader, this May character as I understand the intelligence, you do it, but otherwise maintain a low profile and just observe them. We need to save our full strength for fighting Magma, not dealing with foreign colonists."

"Understood," Shelly folded her arms behind her back. "And assignment number three?"

"You're to head to the ruins of the old government weather center," Archie leaned forward in his chair. "I've heard a group of scientists and mercenaries have been trying to get the station back online. I want you to find out why. If you think you can turn the project towards profit for the family then do so. Otherwise shut it down." The man in the chromed blue armor leaned back again. "That's all," he said. "You're dismissed."

Shelly snapped her heels together and pressed her fist over her chest in salute. "Consider them done," she said. "I'll conduct a few interviews for the team and be off before nightfall." She turned and walked away from the throne, across the brightly lit and lavishly decorated room to the double doors at the far end. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Archie and his men filing out of the room through the door from which they came.

Turning back and opening the double doors, Shelly stepped out, closed the door and, taking a deep breath, smiled to herself and rested against the door a moment. Opening her eyes and glancing about the antechamber outside the throne room, she crossed to the door to the barracks with only her own footsteps and the humming of the florescent lighting breaking the silence. Pulling the cafeteria door open and stepping inside the spacious, if sparsely furnished room, Shelly stopped and stood utterly still a second as the two dozen or so conversations being volleyed around the room stopped the moment she entered.

Looking out over the faces around the room, Shelly spotted her mark at the far end of the room sitting and leaned over a tray of shredded meat. She crossed the floor and stopped next to a soldier in blue camouflage and light body armor who refused to make eye contact with her. "Captain Tavos," Shelly said flatly,"I need you to assemble your men in the main courtyard."

Tavos, a shorter man with a dark complexion and a winding scar across his lower lip, finished a bite of his lunch and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Big assignment from one of the bosses?" he asked in a gravelly voice.

"Three actually," Shelly replied. "These come straight from Archie. I'm going to need sixteen of your men for a mission to the western cities. I'd prefer soldiers with a penchant for sadism, maybe ones with a history of violent crime and unprovoked murder if you have any available."

Showing off his gold teeth, Tavos grinned. "Anything for the boss," he said, standing up from his tray and grabbing a sandwich from the plate of the man beside him. "Meet me in the courtyard in fifteen minutes. I can think of a few that might fit the bill."

Later that day, well after the top of the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, Shelly stood in a small field on the outskirts of Lilycove City. The skyline of the city behind her stood out as a black shape against the starlit background, due in large part to the lack of power to most of the city's high-rises, though here and there a few windows stood out as points of light in the darkness. Before Shelly stood more than a dozen men and women, each dressed from the neck down in blue armor lined with chrome accents and carrying a matching helmet beneath their arms. A few had swords at their sides and shields on their backs while those that didn't carried crossbows and quivers of steel tipped bolts. One woman carried at her hip a coiled metal whip fitted with razor fine blades running the length of its body and a barb at its tip. Each of the gathered Aquan agents however carried no fewer than three pokeballs on their belts, with three of those present carrying six.

Walking to a tall, lanky figure who looked almost too thin for his already slender armor, Shelly looked the man up and down. "Captain Tavos tells me you're the best sniper he's ever seen, that you can reliably hit a man with that crossbow," she glanced at the disproportionately large weapon the trainer carried on his back, "from more than two hundred yards. Is that true?" she asked, stopping when the silent figure only nodded in response. Reaching into the pack at her side she drew out a steel-bodied bolt with a leather case covering its barbed tip. "This hollow bolt holds a very special payload, an especially potent toxin derived from Seviper venom and Muk poison. Once we get to the western cities and engage the forces from Kanto I want you to put this bolt right through their leader's face. Understood?" she asked, smiling when the sniper took the weapon and nodded again.

Looking the soldiers before her up and down, Shelly folded her hands behind her back. "Ladies and gentlemen," she called out. "Our first destination is Slateport harbor. We've got friends who may need helping and targets in desperate need of killing. Do your jobs well and there will be rape and plunder aplenty for all of you so let's hop to it." She took a new pokeball from her belt and threw it to the ground. A whirling cascade of white light lit up the field and was soon after followed by sixteen more flashes of brilliant energy. Materializing from the glows, a herd of flaming Pokémon leapt into existence, their hoofs and bodies wreathed in flaming manes. Shelly grabbed the saddle of her Rapidash and swung herself onto its back as the rest of her trainers mounted their Ponytas amidst cries and whoops and cheers.

Driving her heels into the Rapidash's sides, Shelly whirled the Pokémon around, drew a saber from its sheathe on the mount's side, and aimed the weapon towards the distance. "Form up on me," she shouted. "Let's ride!"


	4. Wallace - Chapter 2 - The Armistice Ends

AN: Good day everyone. My continued thanks for your taking the time out of your day to read my story. It seems the pattern into which I've slipped is to post on Tuesdays, but that said I can make no promises about the next few weeks; I have a few things coming up that will be seriously eating into my schedule. Oh well. Thanks again!

Peace!

* * *

><p>Wallace – Chapter Two –The Armistice Ends<p>

Lying on his back in his bed, Wallace had long since thrown away the fur covers to help cope with the heat wave striking his home. Eyes closed, face contorted in pain, the young trainer struggled to catch his breath, each heaving of his chest bringing a fresh stab of pain to his lungs. Opening one eye to glance at the little Pokémon sitting beside him on the bed, he reached over and rubbed the back of his Ralts' head a moment before letting his arm drop back to the bed. "I know, I know," he muttered, feeling the Pokémon's concerned gaze falling on him. "I overdid it. I just thought that since yesterday I did one lap around the perimeter that today I should go for two."

Taking as deep a breath as he could while trying not to cause his lungs to spasm in protest, Wallace started to speak but stopped short as a shout from beyond his bedroom door cut him off. He recognized his father's voice bellowing at someone, though he couldn't make out the exact words. "Something's wrong," he muttered, sitting up and reaching out his hand for the walking stick propped up in the corner on the opposite side of his room. Eyes flashing red, Ralts' clapped its hands together and the walking stick jumped through the air to Wallace's hand. Snatching the implement from the air, Wallace turned and caught the glowing scarlet belt pouch flying towards him, thanked his Pokémon and leaned his weight on the stick to half-stand, half-roll his way out of the bed as he fixed the pouch to his side by his belt. Motioning with his other hand for the Pokémon to follow him, Wallace walked through the door and into the stone hall beyond.

Simply following the sound of his father's shouting, Wallace paced to the main entry chamber of the Weaver Estate. The expansive room, constructed of heavy dark timbers interlaced between layers of white limestone, normally served as the Weaver Family's center of business, where they would entertain guests from other manors or sort out issues among their own peasants, though on this day the room's only occupants were Lord William, no fewer than a dozen of his personal guard, and ten visitors clearly divided into two equally sized camps.

One of the visiting parties wore distinctive red and orange robes beneath gleaming steel armor. In their hands they carried halberds and lashed by leather cords to their other arm were between two and five of pokeballs. Most distinctive about the trainers in red and silver though were the thick and winding scars they each wore on their faces; each man and woman bore, starting on either end of their jaws and crossing symmetrically over their faces, a gnarled scar in the shape of an "M" that made misjudging their allegiance impossible. Seeing the troops and instantly recognizing them as Magman trainers, Wallace's breath caught.

Opposite those trainers, before his father Wallace saw five more men and women with pokeballs, though these soldiers wore robes dyed deep blue and lined with golden thread over their lighter shirts of fine mail. The robes shone emblazoned with the broken white "A" of their band clearly branded on their backs, matching the sigil scarred into the back of each trainer's right hand. While the Aquan trainers wore no open weapons like the Magman warriors, Wallace could clearly make out the outlines of sabers and knives hanging from their waists beneath their cloaks.

Glancing to the extreme end of the chamber, William Weaver spotted his son and immediately turned back to the guests before him. "I think," he said, voice as firm as Wallace had ever heard it, "that we must finish this discussion another time. Gentlemen, ladies," he inclined his head to his guests.

One of the men in blue stepped forward, pushing his cape back over his shoulders to reveal the sword hanging at his side. "No," said the Aquan agent. "Lord Weaver, I do not believe we have time to discuss this another time! These fiends," he drew his sword with a metallic ring and a flash of light as the blade caught the sun, pointing the saber at the Magmans and prompting both of the other parties in the room to draw and level their weapons at the men and women in blue and silver, "stole an enormous treasure from our master, a treasure you now hold here on these grounds. We demand," the emissary stomped his heavy boot on the ground, "that you return the coffers to us this instant and execute the lot of these thieves."

Aiming his halberd at the Aquans with one hand and holding a pokeball in the other, the largest of the Magmans looked between the man on the stage, flanked by his numerous house guards, and the Aquan trainers on the opposite end of the conflict. "This is preposterous!" the trainer shouted. "Lord Weaver, by the authority of General Maxie and Team Magma I demand you execute these fools and return the treasure to its rightful owners, to us!"

The lead Aquan glared at and aimed his sabre at his Magman counterpart. "Lying, thieving scum," he yelled, face tight with hate. "I'll have your head!"

Slamming his halberd against his breastplate as his four compatriots howled for him to attack, the lead Magman took a step forward. "Try it!" he shouted back. "It's been days since I killed one of you slime."

Stepping up from his seat and stomping down the stage, William positioned himself between the two groups of trainers and held one hand out towards either party. "This is my house!" he bellowed. "You are all guests beneath my roof and I'll have no bloodshed in my hall!" He whipped his gaze between the two posturing parties of trainers. "All of you! Stand down immediately!"

As Wallace watched, both the Magman and Aquan trainers looked from the man between them to the other party, neither backing away but neither charging the other either. Gradually, William stood straight up and lowered his hands to his sides. "Now," he said, his tone more calm but still firm, "you are all perfectly welcome to share my hospitality, but there will be no bloodshed in my home," he looked again between both groups. "Gerard," he looked to the lead Magman, "Alfonz," he said almost pleadingly to the head Aquan, "please. I've been more than happy to work with you both in the past. We've done good business together and we've brought a measure of stability to this land not seen in more than a decade. Please, let's not throw away the profits and the peace we've all enjoyed over a single dispute that I'm sure we can work out."

The Magmans and the Aquans looked amongst themselves, though it was William that continued speaking, stepping back and climbing two of the three steps up to the stage behind him. "Put your damned weapons away," he said, growing calmer with each word. "You both have a veritable army camped outside on my land and the last thing I want is to have to explain to Archie or Maxie why their men were slaughtered at the foot of my throne. Please, everyone remain calm."

William went silent as the lead Magman lowered his halberd before dropping the weapon to the ground and approaching the stage. The soldier in red and orange inclined his head before reestablishing eye contact with the lord of the manor. "Lord Weaver," Gerard said, his voice too quiet for his physique, "respectfully, I demand a private audience."

Folding his arms over his chest, William looked down on his assembled guests. "No one is in a position to demand anything of anyone," he said, "not while they're within my walls. Now, all of you are done for the time being," he raised a hand and gestured to the doors at the end of the hall. "Return to your camps. I'll have my servants bring you meat and wine before sunset. We will continue our discussion at first light."

Mutterings and grumblings rose from both the Aquan and Magman parties, though the former, followed a moment later by the latter, filed out of the chamber. Wallace watched from his vantage point about halfway down the hall as his father sighed and nearly fell back into his throne. Emerging from the shadows Wallace approached the stage, his walking stick clanging on the stone floor followed by the almost silent patting of his Pokémon's feet behind him. He caught his father's attention and bowed before continuing his approach.

The lord of the manor motioned for his son to approach before waving off his guards. "You're up sooner than I anticipated," said the man on the throne, looking about, his eyes eventually setting on the decorative halberds lining the halls walls. "How are you feeling?"

Wallace opened his mouth to speak but a twinge in his chest cut him short. The boy doubled over beneath the weight of a raking cough, raising a hand to his mouth and drawing it away bloody. "I've been better," he said.

"You should be resting," William stated flatly, looking past his son to the door at the end of the hall. "You're not speeding your recovery by over-exerting yourself."

Pointing his walking stick at the door, Wallace faced his father. "How could I possibly stay in bed when we have soldiers from Team Aqua and Team Magma camped at our door?" he asked. "Were you planning on telling me? How many are there-" another fit of coughing filled the chamber with the sound of ripping paper and left Wallace trembling in silence a moment.

Sighing and sitting forward, William closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "Each came with no fewer than fifty men," he growled, "each armed to the teeth and interested in very little beyond starting a fight and taking that treasure you found for themselves." He shook his head. "We should have left it alone, or buried it so deep in the Petalburg Forest no one would ever find it."

Wallace exhaled slowly and carefully, his vision losing focus momentarily and forcing him to sit on the stage to regain his composure. "So what are we going to do?" he asked. "Can we just hand it over to the Magmans and be done with it? It was in their possession after all."

Shaking his head, William sank a little lower on his throne. "The Aquans claim the Magmans stole it from them; saying that's why they were moving it in secret. I don't think I can just give it to one side or the other without giving the other party ample cause to see the action as deliberately favoring their enemy." He chuckled, though the laugh sounded hollow and brought no joy to his face. "Tell me, future lord of the manor, what would you do in this situation?"

Wallace leaned a little more of his weight on the walking stick as he thought, turning to his Ralts and meeting the Pokémon's scarlet eyes. "I'd divide the treasure in two equal parts," he said, his face reflecting the uncertainty in his tone, "coin for coin, pokeball for pokeball, casting a lot to see who got which half."

Raising an eyebrow and stroking his beard, William looked at the ground at his son's feet. "Simplistic," he said, "overly so maybe, but I see no other option to maintain our neutrality. Now tell me," he went on, "if it came to bloodshed, which side would you choose?"

"Honestly," Wallace responded without hesitation, "I don't know nearly enough about either side to pick one over the other," he paused, "probably whichever gave me the least reason to distrust them. At this point that would probably be Aqua, given they weren't secretly hauling enough treasure to start a war across my property."

"Probably wise," William muttered. "I do believe I've taught you well, moreover you've grown beyond my teachings and I think you'll make a fine lord," he stopped as Wallace straightened up following the compliment and grinned from ear to ear. William smiled as his son bowed again, then shifted on his throne and nodded his head towards an especially heavy-looking iron door set in the eastern wall. "Go. Head down to the vault and tally up the treasure. Divide it up as equally as you can and report back to me when you're done. We might yet get these assholes off our land without any bloodshed."

Still beaming from the compliment, Wallace reached down and scooped up his Ralts, setting the Pokémon on his shoulder like he would a small child. "I'll have it done before nightfall," he answered, turning from his father, walking down the steps from the stage, and crossing the hall to the iron door. Reaching out and tugging at the heavy slab of metal without success, Wallace stopped for breath and glanced to the Pokémon in his shoulder. "A little help," he whispered.

Stammering, the Ralts clapped her hands together. Simultaneously her eyes and the door's handle flashed with a dark crimson glow that faded almost as soon as it sprang to life. Hinges grinding under years of accumulated settling and rust, Wallace opened the door with ease. Thanking his little Pokémon he reached up and mussed her hair, disappearing down the stairs and into the dark on the other side of the door.

Making his way to the bottom of the stairs, Wallace stopped on the landing beyond which the light filtering down from the door above him did not reach. Grabbing an unlit torch from the steel bracket bolted to the wall at the bottom of the landing, Wallace held the wooden handle at arm's length as his Ralts again clapped her hands together. A purple spark leapt between the Pokémon's red eyes and instantly the oil-soaked head of the torch burst to fiery life. "Thank you again," Wallace said, watching as the orange light filled the sandy colored hall. The Ralts cooed happily, scooting on his shoulder to snuggle against Wallace's head, eyes closed contentedly.

The young trainer made his way down the hall, passing barred off cells on his left and right, some of which contained iron manacles bolted to the wall or floor, others occupied only by cobwebs. As he reached the end of the passage, coming upon another iron door Wallace glanced into the barred cell beside him and spotted the human skeleton slumped in the corner. Pushing the heavy door aside, Wallace wondered momentarily to whom the bones belonged and how long they had rested there, wasting away in the dungeon.

Deciding to put that mystery out of his mind for the time being, Wallace pushed his way into his family's vault, a domed room constructed of massive orange bricks some fifty feet below ground level. Steel tracks crisscrossed the ceiling, supporting burlap curtains that divided the vault into a number of smaller sections. Throwing the curtains aside and walking the perimeter of the room, Wallace passed his torch through the mouths of two small oil lamps set in the vault's walls before he turned to the collection of boxes and coffers sectioned off by themselves in the center of the room. Looking to the other steel boxes set around the outside of the room, most of which were closed and locked even though some sat open, displaying the Weaver family's wealth of gold coins, jewels, and artifacts cast from precious metals, Wallace sighed and looked to his Pokémon.

"What do you think little fella?" he asked, leaning down as the Ralts hopped to the ground. "Is all this shiny metal really worth fighting over?" Wallace muttered. "What about the colorful rocks? Are they worth killing for?"

Looking up at him, curiosity plain on her face, the Ralts cocked its head off to one side.

Wallace shook his head, setting the torch in a slot in the wall. "I don't think so either," he muttered. "You can't eat gold," he picked through a collection of small bags and sacks, coming upon a sturdy key. "You can't drink gems," Wallace went on as he walked among the Magma coffers, unlocking the chests and lifting the lids to better get a look at the contents. "So I don't see the point."

Sifting and sorting through the chests of coins of gold and silver, digging through chests of pokeballs to ensure no other items lurked beneath the obvious treasures in the chests, Wallace tallied up an estimation of about how much wealth he guessed the Magma cart had been carrying. Lugging the chests away from each other then, taking frequent breaks to either cough noisily or catch his breath, Wallace divided the treasure down what he thought to be the middle. Thereafter he stepped back to examine his work, panting heavily, sweating profusely, and red in the face. All in all the endeavor had taken the better part of nine, perhaps ten hours he estimated, only then realizing that his stomach had been complaining loudly for the latter half of his efforts.

Sitting on one of the closed chests, peeling his sweat soaked emerald shirt from his shoulders and using it to wipe his face and neck, Wallace took several breaths before dropping the shirt to the ground. The wet cloth slapped to the ground by his leather boot as Wallace grimaced and glared at the uneven piles of coffers and chests in the center of the room. "Dammit," he muttered, spotting the darker steel box which left his two piles uneven and walking over to it. "What am I going to do with you?" he hovered over the coffer. "What do you think?" Wallace pivoted and looked to his Ralts where she sat by another box humming a tune quietly to herself.

Turning back to the box, Wallace reached down and flipped its lid open. "How am I supposed to divvy up a bunch of fancy bones?" he looked down into the box at the human skeleton contained therein and the lines of gleaming gold and platinum carefully and neatly inlaid into each and every one of the bones. "I don't think I can split them up," he said, reaching down and picking up the skull from the pile, hesitating a moment at the seemingly disproportional weight of the item. "What's this?" muttered the young trainer, turning the decorated skull over in his hands to get a better feel for its mass, only then noticing that the eye sockets, ear canals, nostrils and the hole at the base of the bony structure had all been covered over with gold, even though the skull's weight failed to convince Wallace the entire bony structure had been filled with the precious metal.

Turning back towards his Pokémon, Wallace took a step. "Hey Ralts," he said, carefully studying the skull as his Pokémon looked up, "give me a hand with this will you-" the boy screamed in surprise as he stepped in the puddle of sweat forming around his discarded shirt, felt his foot fly out from beneath his body, and found himself looking up at the ceiling as he flipped through the air. The skull, almost as if by its own accord, shot from Wallace's hand like an arrow from a bow as he fell.

Gasping as her eyes went wide, the little Pokémon jumped to her feet and clapped her hands together. Instantly her eyes flashed red and a cloud of dull scarlet light sprang to life beneath Wallace, catching the young trainer like a net as the Ralts guided her little nimbus with a thought. Wallace reached out helplessly for the ornate skull, his heart shattering with it as the decorated item smashed into the brick wall and flew into a dozen pieces. Another glint of red light however caught Wallace's eye; some solid object flashing brightly dropped from the skull to the floor with a loud crystalline clank, even as the bony structure broke to splinters against the bricks.

Closing her eyes and tracing her hands through the air to mirror the mental directions she gave the cloud of scarlet light, the Ralts set Wallace, unharmed, on his feet and sighed, dropping her hands as the cloud disappeared behind him. His attention still held by the fate of the decorated skull however, Wallace glanced from where it had struck the wall to where it had dropped its payload on the stone floor and zoned in on the glowing red orb resting silently, but glowing brightly with some inner light, in his family's vault.

"What in the world are you?" Wallace mumbled, stumbling over to the wall and reaching down. The boy's fingers hovered mere millimeters above the orb's glassy surface for a moment as Wallace froze where he stood, leaning his weight against the brick wall. New beads of sweat dotted his forehead and dripped to the ground while he pressed his lips into a fine white line as he prepared to take the silently glowing object in his hand.

Slowly however, Wallace pulled his hand back and away from the orb. His eyes grew narrow as he levelled all his scrutiny on the luminescent artifact. The inner light of the orb swirled and turned in on itself like roiling crimson smoke, hypnotizing the young trainer as his hand hovered inches from the artifact. Wallace jerked, stirred from his state as something brushed his leg. Turning about and looking down he saw his Ralts, her crimson eyes full of worry, looking up at his with her fingers gripping the cuff of his pants.

Reaching down, Wallace again mussed the little creature's hair. "I'm fine," he answered the Pokémon's unasked question. "Nothing to worry about." Wallace stretched out his hand and picked up the glowing red sphere. Instantly his ears perked up and his eyes grew wide. "Hello?" he turned about and looked over his shoulder. "Who's there?" he called out, gripping the orb tightly. When no answer came the trainer turned to his Pokémon. "You heard that," he asked, "right? The whisper?"

Still looking up at him with a face full of concern, the Pokémon at his side shook her head.

Wallace's eyes narrowed. "Huh," he muttered, "weird. I swear I heard something," the trainer paused again. "No," he said to the Ralts, "I couldn't make out what it said. It was just, it was like," he thought a moment, "like a whisper in my head." Wallace held the orb a little higher until it caught the light of one of the vault's oil lamps and, much to the boy's surprise, grew darker. The orb's internal light cooled, the smoky tendrils inside its glass shell slowing their twisting dance.

Spinning about Wallace again glanced over his shoulder. "Seriously," he called ignoring his Ralts and shouting to the otherwise empty room, "is anyone else in here?" he looked between the curtains hanging about the chamber making sure none of them hid anything in their shadows, shadows, the boy thought looked to be growing deeper. "This place is getting to me," he muttered, slipping the orb into pocket, twitching in surprise when the artifact felt almost to shrink in his hand to fit more clandestinely in the pocket. Double checking with a pat to his side, Wallace tried to measure the size of the sphere, unable to be sure that it had indeed changed size despite his reflexive guess that it had. "I need to get some food," said the boy, looking over the two piles of treasure in the center of the room, snuffing out the oil lamps, and walking out of the vault.

Scooping up his Ralts and carrying her with him, Wallace climbed the stairs out of the dungeon, stopping on a landing halfway up when he saw the door back to the manor's main hall had been closed. His Pokémon in one hand and a fresh torch in the other, Wallace climbed to the door and stopped to catch his breath. "Thought I left this open," he wheezed, putting his hand on the door and leaning into it, gasping in surprise when it remained closed fast.

Sucking in a breath, Wallace pressed all his weight against the door. "Damn it," he cursed when it didn't budge. "Ralts," he looked to his Pokémon, who had already climbed down his leg and readied itself to act, "a little help please?" he stepped back a few steps as the little creature clapped its hands and a red spark leapt between the Pokémon and the door. Wallace grinned when he heard the latching mechanism click. "So glad I taught you that," he laughed, stopping short as pain ripped into his chest and he wrenched over, hacking and coughing.

As the fit of wheezing and coughing intensified, Wallace felt his Pokémon put her hand on his knee and worriedly chatter. Taking a moment to close his eyes and breathe, Wallace ceased coughing. Turning his head with one last raking pain in his chest he spit some pink slime against the wall and wiped his lips. Scooping his Ralts back up, Wallace pressed on the door and stepped through as it swung open. Instantly the boy froze, the sound of angry screaming filling his ears as the smell of smoke reached his nostrils.

Casting about the hall and seeing no one, Wallace took one of the decorative halberds from the wall and leaned his weight against the polearm as sweat broke out on his forehead. Quickly he grabbed a cloak slung over a chair and threw it over his shoulders. Making his way down the hall to the manor's main entrance, Wallace could see through the windows set high in the walls that smoke billowed outside the manor. Angry firelight he saw as well flickered on the underside of the dark clouds, twisting and flashing as if dancing to the chorus of the screams outside the manor.

Grabbing the handle to the manor's entrance, Wallace paused as his Ralts tugged on his pants to hold him back. "Not now!" he shouted at the creature. "I've got to find out what's going on!" Wallace threw the door open.

Instantly the screaming intensified and a wave of hot air, carrying with it the smell of burning canvas and flesh, blew into the manor. Wallace squinted against the rush of air, looking from the manor down the cobbled path as it dipped with a drop in the land to the estate's muster field, in which the boy saw three groups of armed, screaming men and variety of snarling, hissing, and roaring Pokémon. One of the three parties wore what Wallace instantly recognized as his father's colors and carried a banner baring his family's sigil, though these men, armed with halberds and accompanied by a pack of Mightyena, a Lairon, and, Wallace saw, his father's Scyther and Sandslash, stood vastly outnumbered by the gathered forces of Teams Aqua and Magma.

Both the rival organizations boasted forces of at least sixty men, accompanied by half again as many Pokémon. The Magmans wore breastplates and carried steel shields, against which they beat their fists and their halberds opposite the Aquan forces. The soldiers in blue and silver however carried crossbows and javelins in their ranks, stomping their armored feet and shouting war cries and taunts at the men in red and orange.

Behind the Magman forces, the young trainer saw, sat a number of tents, several of which had burned to the ground or bore signs of fire damage. In front of one of the tents lay three rectangular sheets of white cloth, covering up three human shapes.

Wallace sucked in a breath, his eyes going wide as he surveyed the battle lines. "I've got to find father!" he shouted, running down the path towards the muster field. As he moved he saw a single figure break away from his family's forces and take up a position in between the three armies. Immediately the boy recognized William Weaver, holding out his hands towards the Aquans and the Magmans as if to keep them apart. Arriving at the rear of his family's forces, Wallace stepped up behind the last rank of his father's men.

The look on his face pleading, William looked between the Aquan and the Magman forces. "-intentional sabotage!" the lord of the manor's words carried on the wind to all present. "Everyone sheathe your weapons and return your Pokémon to their pokeballs!"

A towering man in heavy armor, Gerard, Wallace saw, stepped forward from the Magman ranks. "Sorry old friend," he shouted back, "no one is backing off until we get our treasure back and these Aquan scum pay for killing three of our men!"

The lead Aquan stepped forward from the rest of his ranks, levelling his crossbow at the line of Magman troops. "The treasure is ours you worthless sack of shit!" he screamed. "We didn't set those fires! This is a ruse, a transparent trick!"

Moving up to stand directly between the two band leaders, William again shouted for everyone to lower their weapons. His demand however served only to incense both sides, and the screams from the opposing battle lines intensified. On either side of the slim divide between them, men screamed to attack and Pokémon roared and howled. Wallace pushed his way through the ranks of his father's men to the front line, stepping out from the ranks of soldiers, the young trainer and his Pokémon drew the attention of all those present.

"Dad!" Wallace called out, fighting to maintain his composure even as his chest grew tight and his lungs burned with the urge to cough.

His eyes wide with horror, William turned to his son. "Wallace!" he barked. "Get back to the manor! Now!"

Leaning more of his weight against the halberd, Wallace leaned forward as a ripping cough tore from his chest. Looking up he glanced between the Aquans and the Magmans, both sides screaming at one another. "Shit," he muttered beneath his breath. "How am I going to stop them?" Wallace turned as a hand fell on his shoulder.

The burly soldier, shielded from head to toe in sturdy metal armor with his face hidden behind a thick visor, pulled on Wallace's shoulder just enough to move the young trainer back a step. "Sir," he said calmly, voice too low to reach either the Aquan line or the Magman soldiers, "I have to advise that you return to the manor. These barbarians look pretty intent on starting a fight and I don't think your old man can hold them off."

Pulling away from the man in the emerald armor, Wallace jerked his shoulder from beneath the man's gauntleted hand. "I'm not leaving my father," he barked, taking another step back towards the center of the muster field. "Not without-" Wallace stopped and shouted as his heel struck a rock and he stumbled backwards. Again his Ralts clapped her hands together and again a cloud of crimson light sprang into existence to catch the young lord as he fell.

Tumbling backwards Wallace fell into the cloud though, despite the relatively gentle landing, the flap of his pocket still flew open and the red orb shot from his possession with a speed almost too great for the manner in which it was launched. Landing in the dirt several feet closer to William Weaver, the orb gleamed red, too brightly to simply reflect the firelight from the torches gathered beneath the evening sky. Almost immediately a hush fell over the battle lines as all of the Aquan and Magman troops turned away from each other and faced the new light source shining from the dirt in front of the Weaver forces.

Climbing from the crimson cloud back to his feet, Wallace turned away from his Pokémon and looked between the crimson orb and his father who, much like the leaders of the Aquan and Magman armies, had turned to stare at the orb. Identical expressions of surprise and uncertainty settled on all three leaders' features, before Alfonz visibly twitched and shook himself from his stupor to look around at his cerulean-clad soldiers.

Raising his saber, the Aquan captain looked back at his men. "They've stolen the orb!" he screamed. "Attack!" On one cue, the Aquan forced bellowed their war cry, more than half of them dropping to one knee, simultaneously raising their crossbows, and loosing a storm of bolts as their Pokémon surged forward like a tsunami. Cries rose from the Magman ranks and from the lines of William's forces as a handful of men in each party fell beneath the crossbow fire.

"Protect the lord!" a soldier behind Wallace shouted.

The young trainer glanced around to see his father retreating for the ranks of his men, scooping up the red orb as he ran, while the Weaver soldiers charged forward with a cry. Meanwhile the Magman soldiers levelled their weapons at the Aquan troops and charged alongside their Pokémon headlong into another volley of screaming bolts, losing perhaps half dozen men when the steel-tipped missiles struck home. Screams louder than any Wallace had ever heard rose in the air as the armies met in the center of the field with a thunderous crash. Streaks of lightning, pillars of fire, and storms of crossbow bolts leapt between the Aquans and the Magmans as the Weaver forces closed ranks around their lords amidst the screams of victims being rent apart by voracious Pokémon.

William put a hand on Wallace's shoulder, his face hard as he pulled his son closer. "Wallace," he hissed, jamming the red orb into his son's hands and closing the boy's fingers on the artifact. "We need to get back to the manor and lock ourselves in. Now that the fighting's started there'll be no stopping it. We-" he stopped short as a deafening roar split the night and left Wallace's ears ringing and his head throbbing.

In the center of the muster field, a cloud of white light no less than forty feet high and more than a hundred feet wide spun like smoke caught in the wind, coalescing into four titanic pillars of blinding energy. Wallace's jaw dropped and his heart thumped so hard in his chest it felt as though the organ might fail for fear as the columns of light turned blue and shaped themselves into titanic serpents. As the four enormous Gyarados burst from the cloud, screaming as they arrived on the battlefield, William turned back to his son.

Grabbing Wallace by the shoulders, the lord of the manor looked his son directly in the eye. "I'm proud of you Wallace!" he shoved the boy into the waiting grasp of two soldiers who hoisted Wallace up even as two of the Gyarados turned their attention on the Weaver formation. Shouting to his troops as his Pokémon leapt to his side, William stabbed one finger to the house up the hill. "We'll hold them off! Get my son to the vault and lock yourselves in! Go now!"

Wallace screamed for the soldiers to let him go even as the armored men dragged him down the sidewalk, their iron grips making resistance impossible. Even so Wallace struggled to get free of the men, watching in horror as the two Gyarados bore down on his father's soldiers while the Aquan and the Magmans threw themselves against each other farther back. "Dad!" Wallace shouted at the top of his lungs. "Dad no!" his face went white as one of the huge blue Pokémon reared back, a sphere of golden energy whirling to life between its jaws.

Heaving itself forward, the Gyarados unleashed its hyper-beam on the Weaver forces, the bolt of energy striking the earth with the force of a falling meteorite, shaking the ground and instantly vaporizing five men unlucky enough to be caught in the blast. Wallace screamed again to be released, but the two soldiers ignored his pleas, dragging him up the hill and away from the battlefield. One of the guards looked over his shoulder and stopped in his tracks beside a small tree. "Watch out!" he screamed just before another hyper-beam shot up the hill and struck the ground not more than a meter from Wallace and his escorts. The beam exploded and Wallace felt himself flying through the air. His world vanished in a flash of white, followed instantly by an all-encompassing darkness that utterly obscured his vision.

Feeling himself strike the ground hard, Wallace rolled to a stop and lay a moment on the grass. Unable to breathe and engulfed from head to toe in fiery pain, he opened one eye just enough to see his Ralts rushing up the hill towards him. The little Pokémon was at Wallace's side an instant later, grabbing him by the elbow and straining to lift him to his feet. For a reason the boy couldn't quite place however, his legs refused to support him. Only then did Wallace turn his head to one side and see the wooden stake, at least six inches around perhaps two feet long, the remains of a young tree, sticking through his calf, impaling his leg and pinning him to the ground.

Swearing beneath his breath, Wallace probed the wound with his fingers as the battle raged below him. Lashing out he stopped his Pokémon from wrenching the debris from his leg. "No, no, no," he shouted at the little creature. "I don't want to bleed to death. Been there, it's not fun. Help me up." He jerked the stake from the ground and pressed one hand to the grass, then setting the other on his Ralts' shoulder as the little Pokémon braced to bare his weight. Glancing about and spotting both his guards, unmoving in heaps some ten feet away from him, Wallace looked back down on the battlefield where the entire fight had devolved into a morass of fire, lightning, screaming, and monsters. The young trainer couldn't tell individual soldiers apart and failed to locate his father. One of the Gyarados, he saw, go down thrashing and flashing with yellow light as a blinding bolt of lightning struck the monster square in the back of the skull.

Hobbling to his feet, Wallace looked between the battle and the manor, his face drawn tight and tears of powerless anger forming in the corners of his eyes. "Dammit," he swore, turning for the manor and stumbling towards it. The young trainer felt a lance of pain rip into his injured leg as he tried to walk and he toppled to his hands and knees some fifty yards from the huge house. "Never going to make it," he muttered. He turned as someone behind him but closer than the rest of the battle screamed. A fleeing Magman soldier disappeared in a puff of smoke as a hyper-beam shot from one of the Gyarados and vaporized the man.

The beam of light raced up the hill, carving a trench three feet across in the dirt and missing Wallace by mere feet. Cutting through the walls of the manor like a knife through putty, the hyper-beam sliced into the house on the hill and exploded with a force that sent Wallace toppling backwards. Rocks, glass, splinters of wood, and shards of metal erupted from the manor as it exploded, lighting up the night like a firework and leaving the young trainer dazed and seeing double.

Rolling to his hands and knees, Wallace turned back to the battle below him, just in time to see one of the three remaining Gyarados turn away from the combatants all around and face him and his Pokémon. "Ralts," Wallace managed to mutter. "Raise a barrier!"

The little Pokémon threw herself between Wallace and the distant Gyarados as the huge Pokémon opened its jaws wide. As the Gyarados leaned forward and unleased from between its teeth a blinding hyper-beam, Ralts raised her hands as her eyes flashed red. A crimson shield like a pane of stained glass appeared and hung in midair between Ralts and the Gyarados. The hyper-beam struck the light shield, shaking the ground and hesitating only a second before shattering through the barrier like fragile crystal. Shards of the shield shot in all directions, vanishing in little flashes of light as the hyper-beam continued on as though nothing had stood in its way.

Wallace closed his eyes and dropped his head. He heard the hyper-beam screaming towards him and instantly the whole world went both dark and silent.

SC

Lying with his eyes tightly shut, the first thing Wallace sensed was his own heartbeat. He could hear the rhythmic thumping in his ears. He tried to move but found it impossible, some colossal weight held him in place, bearing down and threatening to crush the life out of the young trainer. Even opening his eyes, the boy discovered, remained outside the realm of possibilities. Whatever the weight was, Wallace realized, crushed down on his face as well. Even his breathing, noted the young trainer, was nearly impossible.

Nevertheless, Wallace remained determined to either escape his blinding prison, or at least spite it. He focused all his strength and pushed out with one arm, feeling his fingers make negligible progress through whatever restraints held him down. As he fought to simply move his hand, Wallace felt his other senses gradually returning, bringing with them a level of excruciating pain that prompted the young trainer to twist his face and clench his jaw in agony. As his hearing returned to him, Wallace made out what he thought might be the sound of flames.

A moment later, pain exploding in his ribs, Wallace felt some tremendous impact in his side. The blow knocked the wind from his chest and left the boy wondering how such a painful strike failed to send him tumbling away regardless of what restraints held him down.

"Commander!" Wallace heard someone shout, followed immediately by the sound of someone kneeling down by him. "Commander I found him!"

Straining with effort, Wallace managed to crack one eye barely open. Above him dark clouds of smoke filled the sky, shining red with reflected firelight, against which he saw the silhouette of a man standing over him. His vision showing double and triple, obscured by floating blindspots, Wallace struggled to make out the identity of the man above him.

"Is he alive?" another voice asked, its source beyond the edge of Wallace's vision.

The first voice hesitated. "I'm not sure," it responded.

An itch worming into his lungs, Wallace coughed, jerking once on the ground. The action leaving his chest burning and short of breath, Wallace managed to fully open his eyes. Immediately the two figures standing over him dropped down, one sliding a hand behind his back and supporting his head, sitting him upright. The young trainer saw that nothing, in fact, held him to the ground, only a dusting of dirt covered his clothes. So again the boy tried to move but found himself just as immobilized as he had been a moment prior, pinned and paralyzed by his exhaustion.

The source of the second voice, a man garbed in red and gold and orange, a massive "M" scarred across his face, knelt before him. "Wallace Weaver?" the Magman commander asked, reaching behind his back and drawing a small waterskin from between his red cape and his heavy metal armor which, Wallace saw, bore numerous dents, dings, and bloody claw marks. "You're Wallace Weaver?" he asked again, pressing the mouth of the waterskin to Wallace's lips.

Feeling the lukewarm liquid on his tongue, Wallace drank greedily, only realizing when the water rolled over his mouth and down his throat just how parched his unconsciousness had left him. "That's me," he muttered, barely able to voice the words. "Who are you?" he paused as his head cleared some, even in the face of the screaming pain wrapped around his body like a blanket of fire.

The commander pressed his fist to his chest in salute. "Gerard McNomik," said the Magma trooper. "I'm glad to see you survived." He went on. Wallace glanced to his side as movement caught his eye, spotting his Ralts emerging from the Commander's shadow and sitting on the scorched grass beside the young trainer. Looking down, McNomik nodded to the little Pokémon. "That's a loyal partner you've got there. It came to my men and got them to come find you as soon as the battle was over."

Unable to hold back a smile, Wallace reached over and put his hand on the Pokémon's head, ignoring all the pain accompanying the action. "Thank you," he said, looking between both his Ralts and the commander of the Magman troops. "So what happened?" he asked, leaning back on his elbows. "The last thing I remember was," he trailed off, the image of the hyper-beam screaming towards him still fresh in his mind.

McNomik shook his head. "Things," he hesitated a moment, "got out of hand. The Aquan soldiers released their Gyarados and everything happened so fast after that. Your father and his men sided with my forces and together we managed to kill the four Gyarados and every Aquan trooper but," again Gerard stopped and took a breath, "there weren't many survivors."

His muscle's still aching, Wallace pushed himself a little higher and looked down at the aftermath of the battle fought in the muster filed. Everywhere he looked, pikes and halberds stuck up from the ground like broken blades of grass, broken swords and smashed shields littered the ground. His stomach turning over, Wallace made no effort to even count the dead he saw. Interspersed among the four huge blue carcasses of the Gyarados, bodies like sand on a shore lay broken, the fires burning amongst the tents, barracks, and grain silos of the Weaver estate glinting off their orange, blue, or emerald green armors, or their beige tunics and canvas pants in the cases of the Weaver servants.

Looking back to the Magman commander and the battered men in broken orange armor gathering around him, Wallace rolled to his side and pushed himself to his feet, his head spinning as he stood. "And my father's men?" Wallace asked, plainly struggling to keep his composure. "The servants, the field hands, and the soldiers, Doctor Leinwetter?"

Gerard folded his hands behind his back. "The Aquan attack made no differentiation between soldiers and non-combatants," he answered. "Everyone was either killed when the Aquans attacked the barracks, or scattered. I saw a few making for the Petalburg Woods, but I can't say whether or not they made it."

Breath catching, Wallace dropped his head and closed his eyes. Without speaking he looked back to the shattered remains of his manor, a burned out husk standing out against the dark clouds behind it only by virtue of the fires still smoldering within its broken down stone walls. Turning towards the battlefield again, Wallace began walking down the sloping path between his house and the field, his Ralts silently in tow, her hand gripping tightly the cuff of his ash covered pants. Stopping at the edge of the battlefield, the young trainer cast about, spotting almost immediately the bodies of his father's personal guard.

Silent and unmoving, smashed down or pinned to the ground by arrows and bolts, the men remained in an obvious defensive formation. At one flank of the collection of dead soldiers, Wallace spotted a man in particularly well-kept emerald armor, though the gold crown fitted to the helmet drew his attention fastest of all visible features, and immediately the young boy hobbled over to the figure. Dropping to his knees beside the still body, Wallace looked first at the broken sword in his hand, then at the many arrows piercing his breastplate, and finally at the numerous dead combatants laying about him. Among the body count Wallace counted no fewer than five Aquan soldiers, two Mightyena, half a dozen Zubat, and a Golbat, each crisscrossed by mortal wounds plainly inflicted by the dead soldier's sword.

Reaching down, Wallace gripped the man's battered helmet by the wide ring of gold inlaid above the brow and gave it a tug, though the bowl bashed into the bit of armor making it cling tightly to the man's skull. Again Wallace pulled at the article of armor, removing it after a moment's struggle and instantly the boy's heart dropped. Immediately Wallace collapsed down and clutched up his father's body, cradling the unmoving lord and burying his face in the man's cold neck. Fighting harder than he ever had before to keep calm, Wallace still failed to contain a number of quiet sobs that escaped his chest as he clutched the man beneath him.

Feeling a tiny hand press up against his flank, Wallace turned and spotted his Ralts, touching him gently on the shoulder and staring at him with her big red eyes. Tears streaking down his face, Wallace reached over and pulled the little Pokémon into his embrace. Clutching both the Ralts and William's body to him, Wallace threw his head down and wailed, a long and baleful scream. No wheezing or pain in his lungs, no coughing or hacking held the boy back as he mourned. The scream intensified and rose into the night as Wallace gripped his Pokémon and his father tighter, before gradually fading and eventually ceasing altogether, leaving the boy silently clutching Ralts and William.

Shivering and gasping for breath, Wallace remained silent a moment longer, even as he heard footsteps behind him. After a minute passed, he released his grip on his Pokémon and the dead body, picking up his father's helmet, tucking it beneath his arm, and standing to face Gerard and his Magmans. "Thank you," said the boy, his voice strained and raw, his eyes red and his face streaked with salt, "for helping defeat the Aquans. You have my gratitude."

Stepping forward, Gerard cleared his throat. "I'm sorry for your loss," said the burly trooper reaching up to run a hand across his face and trace his fingers over the thick "M" branded into his features. "Your father and I never really saw eye to eye on much," he paused, "on most things in fact. But he was nothing if not an honorable man and he provided a stabilizing influence to this whole region. My little lord," he looked around at the smoking remains of the estate, "For your father's sake, in honor of his memory, I'll happily extend to you an invitation to join Team Magma."

Looking all around him at what remained of the estate, Wallace hesitated before turning back to Gerard. "I'll join Team Magma," he said, his voice calmer now, "on one condition."

The Magma commander grinned and shifted his weight back to one leg. "And what condition would that be?" he asked.

Reaching down and picking up his Ralts, Wallace set the Pokémon on his shoulder and faced the commander again. "I'll join you, if you help me dig out my family's fortune from the vault beneath the manor, and put every last copper towards fighting Team Aqua."

"Done," Gerard nodded. "We'll need to get to work then," he put his fingers to his lips and whistled to call in his remaining dozen soldiers. "Alright boys," he shouted, "you heard the little lord. Let's get to it-"

Wallace turned away from the commander and tuned him out, his attention snapping to a little spot up the hill where a red glint of light caught his attention. Pressing his hand to his pocket and feeling it empty, Wallace cursed beneath his breath. Immediately he trekked up the side of the hill and knelt by a smoldering rosebush, reaching inside the thorny mass and pulling from it the glinting red orb he took from the steel chest beneath the manor. "Almost lost you," he muttered, no shortage of relief permeating his voice as he looked down at the little orb, its flickering internal light sparking in his eyes. "That was close," he breathed, slipping the orb in his pocket.

_Master,_ a quiet voice reached Wallace.

The young trainer turned around, looking for the source but spotting no one around. "Hello?" he asked.

_Master,_ the voice sounded again, distinctly feminine and seeming to travel not through the air but somehow reaching directly into the boy's mind. _Down here._

Looking down, all Wallace saw was the Ralts clinging to the cuff of his pantleg, looking up at him with her huge red eyes. The young trainer's face grew a shade paler. "Ralts?" he said. "Is that- Was that you?"

The little Pokémon nodded and looked up at him again. _Yes, who else would it be?_ She asked, bypassing Wallace's ears and speaking directly to his mind.

Twitching once with shock, Wallace's jaw dropped. "How did you, I mean how are you," he trailed off a moment. "You can talk?"

Again the little Pokémon nodded, reaching out with her other hand to grab the cuff of his pants. _I'm sorry_, she said quickly, _please don't be angry with me, but after the monster hit us with that beam, you, you were_, she looked down and back up again. _You would have died,_ said the Pokémon without moving her lips. _So I used what power I could to keep your heart beating and your brain functioning… but I think I made a mistake._

Still pale as sheet, Wallace knelt down, closer to the Pokémon's level. "But I'm still alive," he said. "What happened?"

_Once you were more stable,_ Ralts said, _I couldn't break the connection._ She looked down at the ground. _I still can't. Master, I'm sorry but I think we're connected now, psychically._

His eyebrows raised in surprise, Wallace kept staring down at the little Pokémon. "What?"


	5. May - Chapter 2 - First Strike

AN: No real note today, besides my utter hatred for FFNet's spell checker. I can't see the actual mistakes for all of the "Complex Expression" warnings.

Oh well. Thanks very much for reading and have an awesome one!

Peace!

* * *

><p>May – Chapter Two – First Strike<p>

One wave splashing over the next as the tide gradually rolled in, the bubbling and stirring of white foam all around, the sound of the ocean more than drowned out the noise of the little rowboat cutting slowly through the water as it made its way towards land. From her seat on the bench in the middle of the boat, May looked to the dark sky, lit only as it was by the myriad stars reflecting off the tossed surface of the sea and the thinnest sliver of the waning silver moon. She turned her gaze down and pulled her hood and cloak, both the color of the sea all around her, a bit tighter about her frame. Nevertheless, the falling starlight caught the edges of her pearl armor, glinting off the cream-colored plates and their gold trimmings.

Glancing back to the west while her tiny boat floated east, May watched as the last glimpses of her flotilla, every light extinguished, disappeared behind the horizon. She wrapped her fingers around the grip of the sword hanging at her hip, repeatedly squeezing the handle tightly and then releasing her icy hold on it for several minutes. Sighing and looking again to the east, she stared as hard as she could into the darkness. Nevertheless, the midnight gloom obscured any hint of the land towards which her companions rowed. Leaning to her left, May nudged Odin with her elbow, stirring the youth from his dozing. "How can you sleep at a time like this?" asked the savant.

Stretching and yawning, opening one green eye halfway through the exercise to look at his commander, Odin shrugged. "How can you not?" he asked. "It's midnight and we won't land on Route One-Oh-Four until almost two. Sleep is the only responsible thing to be doing," he paused and looked around at six other trainers in the boat, each encased from head to toe in Team Rocket's finest composite armor. "Besides, from the beach to Petalburg," he slowed as if to think, "we should make it to the city well before sunrise, just like you want."

Again May sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "You're not taking this nearly seriously enough," she said, her words almost hidden beneath her breath.

Odin closed his eyes and pulled his cloak over himself to stave off the midnight chill. "With all respect princess," he groaned in return, "I think you're taking this far too seriously, in case you- Ow!" he yelped as May smacked the back of her hand below his waist, mere centimeters above a delicate target and filling the air with the crack of armor striking armor.

Grinning, May turned back forward. "That didn't hurt," she said. "Don't be a baby. And never say I'm taking things too seriously. Petalburg was my home," she said somberly as her smile melted away, "the seat of my family's power. Taking it back isn't a matter I can take seriously enough," she looked to her right and her left, spotting the twelve other rowboats carrying the ninety other trainers and soldiers slicing through the waves towards land.

Still guarding his delicate regions with his hands, Odin stood and relieved one of the Rocket trainers from rowing, taking her spot and working the oar. "Whatever you say princess," he muttered.

The next several hours slipped into oblivion without incident. May and Odin watched as a dark mass rose over the horizon and gradually took the shape of a long and winding beach, dotted with countless boulders. Farther back from the beach and illuminated only barely by the stars overhead, the treeline of a massive forest rose into the sky, stretching as far in either direction as any of the trainers in the rowboats could see. Their approach silenced by the surf and masked by the dozens of boulders jutting out of the water and the sand, May's thirteen boats struck the beach and instantly the trainers thereon jumped into the water and dragged the boats ashore. Lashing the little vessels to the rocks, the trainers secured the boats behind only the biggest stones to ensure that casual observation from the trees would not spot them. That task complete, they quickly gathered around May in absolute silence.

Taking a pokeball from her belt, May threw it to the ground and stepped back as the ball snapped open, releasing a flood of white light that whirled around a central core and quickly coalesced into the shape of a humanoid standing about a meter tall. Stepping out of the light and stomping the sand with its three-toed, taloned foot to signal its arrival, May's Combusken opened its beak and squawked. Walking forward, May patted the Pokémon behind its head before reaching to close its beak. She snapped her fingers and immediately the bipedal Pokémon shook out its feathers, puffing up and beginning to glow with just the intensity of a few candles.

Working with the new light, Odin stepped forward as the other trainers formed half a circle around him. "So here's the plan," said the sandy-haired youth, producing a rolled paper from between his cloak and his black armor, opening it up to reveal a map as he knelt in the sand to display it to the other trainers. "About thirty thousand people call Petalburg home so it's definitely not the smallest settlement in the region but it isn't the biggest either, a nice, soft target." He looked to May. "Care to take it from here?"

Stepping forward, the girl in white armor cleared her throat and knelt in the sand by the map. "Currently a warlord by the name of Maxie and his so-called 'Team Magma' control the city by maintaining occupation of a few key points." She tapped the map of the city with one finger. "Here," he said, "is the water-treatment plant. It's a leftover from Hoenn's brighter days and supplies Petalburg with fresh, clean water it purifies from the bog-water pumped in from the Petalburg woods. If we're going to take control of the city then capturing the treatment center is absolutely vital." May looked up to the group of trainers and soldiers around her. "Miscarcot," she nodded to one particularly large man wearing four pokeballs at his belt and an enormous sword at his back.

The soldier straightened up, his spikey black hair moving with the whipping breeze blowing across the beach. "Milady," he acknowledged.

Again May tapped the treatment plant on the vellum before her. "You and your teams will be responsible for seizing the plant. Keep collateral damage to an absolute minimum. My team and I," she looked back down on the map, "will take the gym. Thanks to Odin's spy work we know Magma is using it as their headquarters as well as for a storehouse for all of the food shipped in from the nearby manors. Odin's surveillance also suggested that the gym is where Team Magma stores the taxes they collect from Petalburg, Oldale, and Littleroot before shipping them via Route One-Oh-Four to their headquarters in Rustboro. If we can capture both points simultaneously then we'll control the food, the water, and a ton of cash while Team Magma's cells in Oldale and Petalburg will be cut off from their most ready source of reinforcements.

"Once the town is ours" May's grin widened, "we'll be moving the ships to the shore and anchoring more permanently along Route One-Oh-Four so I want every team captain to have a messenger ready to dispatch back to the flotilla. From there we can use the flotilla as our command center and Petalburg as our forward staging area to hit Oldale and then Littleroot while we ready to strike at Rustboro within the fortnight. Crippling Rustboro's docks will mean Team Magma will have to send its forces the long way around to reinforce any of their south-eastern forces. Even better, controlling One-Oh-Four will mean that Magma's western territories will be cut in half and cut off from one another. We'll have no problem surrounding and destroying the weaker cells east of our position while their forces in the north will be helpless to send reinforcements. Everyone clear?" May's voice rose at the question as each of her men saluted and shouted their affirmation. "Good," she answered. "Now get a bite in. We're marching in ten."

Once everyone had been briefed on their roles in the coming strike May rolled the vellum map back into a tight cylinder and handed it to Odin before turning her back on the gathered trainers and soldiers and walking a few yards away from her force. She stood on the edge of the surf and looked out over the dark sea, her eyes flitting along the horizon as she sank deeper and deeper into her thoughts. Odin meanwhile walked amongst the assembled Rockets as they broke out rations and canned meals from their packs, hunkering down on the beach and preparing for a quick meal before departing. The youth spotted May standing by herself, sighed, and waked up beside her.

Clearing his throat to get her attention, Odin folded his hands behind his back and looked westward with his commander. "Nervous?" he asked quietly.

Pressing her lips into a fine line, May held her hands up before her face, watching silently a moment as her fingers twitched and shook before she balled them into two tight fists. "It's been more than ten years since I was home," she said beneath her breath. "When I was Professor Elm's apprentice not a day went by that I didn't dream of coming back and taking what's rightfully my family's. But now that I'm here," she stopped short.

Smiling and looking down, Odin dug the toe of his heavy boot into the sand. "Now that you're here you're not sure you'll be able to pull it off. You look at that map and it occurs to you just how much ground there will be to cover and just how hard it will be to control it all."

Still staring at the point far away where the sky met the sea, May took a deep breath and nodded. "Am I that easy to read?" she asked.

Odin smirked. "It only means that you're not insane," he answered. "Honestly I'd be worried if you weren't nervous."

"It's not that I," May trailed off, both looking over and reaching over to put a hand on her second-in-command's shoulder. "Thank you," she said.

Nodding, Odin put one hand in the pouch hanging at his hip. "Your men all have faith in you, ma'am," he said. "I have faith in you." Drawing from his pack a small bundle of silvery white flowers, Odin held the little plants up between himself and May. "If it's not too bold," he said as May's eyes fell on the flowers, "I've had the utmost faith in you since we first met on the docks back in Pallet Town."

May stammered a brief moment, her cheeks turning visibly pinker as she looked between her subordinate and the flowers. "Odin I," she searched for words. "I don't know, we, I mean us, the mission," she went on. "This is hardly the time or the place," she managed at length to string the sentence together.

Bobbing his head in agreement and shrugging, Odin dropped his hands to his sides. "I know, forgive me," he answered. "I just wanted to at least throw it out there. I mean with tomorrow and the mission coming up so fast," he paused. "It's going to be dangerous and I didn't know if there would be an opportunity in the near future, or at all really so I just wanted you to be aware," again he paused as May looked up at him without an answer or any real expression on her features. "I'll shut up now," his face fell as he turned away.

May opened her lips to speak and raised a hand for him, but the words died in her mouth and she failed to make contact as Odin took a few steps towards the rest of the trainers on the beach. "Odin, wait," she blurted, too quietly to be heard by anyone other than her intended despite the urgency permeating her words. She followed after him as the youth stopped and turned to face her, her own features shifting between a mask of uncertainty and a wide, almost beaming smile as she reached forward and took the silvery flowers from his hand. "They're beautiful," she said. "Simbelmyne has always been my favorite. Thank you," she held the flowers up to her nose and took a deep breath. "It only grows around Petalburg and even there it's rare. Where did you find any?"

His face lighting up, Odin shrugged and moved to drop his hands into his pockets, only to discover that his armor in fact possessed no pockets. "While I was scouting Petalburg a couple of those Team Magma goons caught onto me and chased me out of the city," he kept speaking even as May's expression evolved from pleasantly surprised to shocked. "I lost them by diving into a ditch filled with tall grass and these were growing along the edge of the ditch. I thought you might like them," he grinned.

"You didn't mention you were chased by Magma personnel," May said flatly beneath her breath, looking beyond Odin at the rest of her party as they ate.

The young trainer's grin widened and he glanced about. "That's because it didn't happen," he said with a laugh. "It's good to know you care though."

Her face flashing from pink to red, May shoved the flowers against Odin's breastplate, sending a spray of petals into his face before storming by him. "You're impossible," she huffed as Odin, recovering from the force of the blow, turned to follow her.

"Wait," Odin whispered after May. "Commander, I was out of line. I'm sorry." He stopped, almost skidding along the sand as May planted her feet and turned on him.

Her arms folded across her chest met and held his gaze. "Let's get one thing straight," she said. "This mission is bigger than you, it's bigger than me, it's bigger than anything or anyone and I will tolerate no behavior that places any facet of our job here at risk. That includes your eternally plucky nature. Am I clear?" Again she waited as Odin nodded. "Good," she walked forward, closing the distance between them to less than a full step. "Now, completely off the record," she reached for the remains of the flowers that Odin had managed to capture and took them in her hand, "once Petalburg is mine," she trailed off and looked down at the silvery blooms of the simbelmyne, "well, these are the most beautiful flowers anyone's ever given me. Bring me some more and I'll need to thank you somehow."

Visibly perking up, Odin bowed as May walked by him back to the rest of the gathered trainers. Putting two fingers between her lips, May loosed a whistle, drawing everyone's attention. "Alright everyone, break's over. We all know our roles so let's get to it. Hoods up!"

SC

Sitting in the branches of a particularly large oak tree, looking down the slope of the hill from her vantage point, May scanned the northern border of the city of Petalburg through a pair of high-powered binoculars. Spotting the city's gym in an instant the young savant took several minutes to survey the building, its fenced-in grounds, and the surrounding streets. In the predawn gloom the city's roads lay empty, submerged in a thick mist lingering at waist height, and only a handful of lit windows broke up the otherwise uniformly dark mass of the town. Counting only two guards cloaked in red and orange, one on the gym's roof and the other patrolling the perimeter of the grounds, May hopped down from the tree and into the opaque mist filling the forests north of Petalburg.

Looking around at the thirty-five trainers hunkered in the mist with only their heads and shoulders remaining visible, May put away her binoculars and pointed down towards the gym. "Two hostiles, one on the roof, one walking the fence," she said curtly. "Simon, Fredrick," May motioned to two of the Rocket trainers who, with their matching red hair, blue eyes, and identical facial features could have easily passed for twins, "I want them taken down silently. Wait until the rest of us are within fifty yards of the fence, then mount up and fly in for the kills."

Both brothers saluted and nodded in unison. "Yes milady," they answered as one.

Turning to Odin for only a moment before turning to face the city to the south, the sandy haired youth smiling to her reassuringly, May raised a fist, opened her hand above her head, and motioned forward. Ducking down such that only her eyes remained above the all concealing early morning mist, May set off for the gym, her white and gold armor blending invisibly into the surround. Behind and beside the commander, her three dozen escorts strode silently forward, their boots falling without a sound into the muffling wet grass and their grey cloaks disappearing into the morning haze.

As the platoon of trainers neared the fence cordoning off the gym's grounds and May spotted the Magma sentry on the roof turning to face south, the young savant turned to the twins right behind her and gave them a thumbs up. Instantly the redheaded Simon and Fredrick drew pokeballs from their belts and great folded sheets of canvas from their packs. Throwing the pokeballs to the ground, both trainers stepped between the ensuing flashes of white energy and the gym and threw up their arms, dropping tall curtains of canvas down on the materializing Pokémon to completely absorb the telltale display. As the glow faded from beneath the edges of the canvas, the brothers whipped away the heavy blankets and swung themselves into the saddles of their eagerly awaiting twin Fearow.

May turned back to the gym and, raising her hand as a signal, drew a pokeball from her belt. All the trainers around her did the same and followed their commander silently forward as Simon and Frederic spurred their mounts and took to the skies. Shooting like a volley of arrows into the sky, the two brothers climbed to well over a hundred feet above the gym in the time it took for May's forces to close half the distance to the fence. Signaling their mounts, both brothers leaned forward and wrapped their arms around their Fearows' necks as the massive flighted Pokémon tucked their wings to their bodies and dove from the sky like a pair of falling spears.

May whistled to a trainer beside her who charged forward and threw his pokeball to the ground. Just as the little orb struck the ground and split open, the young commander looked up and saw the Magman soldier on the roof glance skyward a second too late to see the descending Fearow. As the huge bird snatched him up in its talons and snapped its wings open to change its course and level off with the ground it stabbed forward with its beak and impaled the sentry through his unarmored neck before the man could so much as scream. As that Fearow opened its talons and loosed the slain sentry on a trajectory that would carry his body well outside the gym's grounds, the second Fearow dropped out of the sky, landing like a boulder on the guard on the ground, opening its wings wide, slashing with its talons, and stabbing with its razor sharp beak. Reducing the sentry to an eviscerated mass of disconnected limbs in no way identifiable as human, the massive bird landed softly and began pecking at the meat below it despite its rider's futilely tugging on the reins to pull the bird away.

Turning her gaze back to the ground as she and her followers closed on the fence, May watched as the man beside her, a Rhyhorn springing to life from the pokeball he threw to the ground, charged ahead and leapt onto the Pokémon's stony back. Spurring his mount into a full sprint, the Rocket trainer rode the beast straight to the edge of the fence surrounding the gym and, the instant prior to impacting the barrio, leapt from the Pokémon's back and landed in the wet grass as the Rhyhorn tore through the wooden planks before it like a mace crushing through balsa.

With only a grunt as it broke through the fence, the Rhyhorn charged onto the gym's grounds, smashing open a passage some ten feet across through which May's forces, led by the savant herself, flooded into the restricted zone. Without shouts of cries the three dozen trainers surrounded the stone and timber building and rushed forward to the handful of doors lining the structure, each and every present trainer throwing no fewer than two pokeballs to the ground. As dozens of pillars of white light roared to life and died, as many Pokémon appeared, ready to storm the gym.

Reaching the gym's exterior wall, May threw herself against the stone and peered through one of the glass doors leading into the structure. Spotting no one within the brightly lit hall beyond, she turned back to the trainers behind her, namely the two standing beside a pair of hulking Machoke, snapped her fingers, and pointed to the door. The pair of trainers relayed the order to their Pokémon and the Machoke both stepped forward. Reaching for the door they pressed their muscled fingers between the reinforced glass doors and the stone walls, carving out little trenches as they did so and readied their grips. Meanwhile May's other trainer teams took their positions at the remaining doors, their Pokémon ready and waiting on the order as the young commander raised her fist over her head.

A gentle breeze blew across the open grounds of the Petalburg Gym, moving through the ranks of trainers with just enough force to toss May's tight ponytail to one side as it reached her, her armored hand balled into a fist and held above her head. Taking a single deep breath to steady herself, May blinked once and signaled her troops.

Instantly the Machokes beside her heaved back, pulling the heavy doors from the walls, their hinges popping with metallic shrieks and offering no resistance whatsoever before the muscled Pokémon. May motioned forward and without hesitation Odin and his team of five trainers and five times as many Pokémon charged into the gym, followed immediately by May and her team. Simultaneously the Rocket teams at the other entrances breached their doors and charged into the building, drawing their weapons and fragmenting into smaller groups that stormed individual doors and corridors.

Seconds after Odin's team breached the gym, cries of shock and terror erupted from within the walls, accompanied by bellowed orders for everyone to get on the ground with their hands on their heads. Similar screams and identical orders went up room by room as May's forces flooded through the gym, tearing through every barrier before them, rounding up any enemy combatant, and continuing on with neither hesitation or loss of momentum.

Leading the charge as their Teams splintered away to maintain control of the gym and keep the growing number of prisoners under control, May, Odin, and one other trainer bearing Team Rocket's black and red composite armor, reached what the two commanders both guessed to be the gym's deepest chamber. Sectioned off and protected as it was by a tall door constructed of heavy timbers and reinforced by a wooden portcullis, the chamber May guessed must contain the treasures and taxes Team Magma collected from the surrounding country.

May looked to her Combusken and nodded to the door as Odin turned to his Houndoom and did the same. Clearing his throat, Odin patted his canine Pokémon behind its horns. "Burn it down," he said, as calm as May had ever heard him.

Sucking in a deep breath and lowering its horned head almost to the ground, the Houndoom leapt forward, opened its jaws wide, and belched forth a wave of boiling liquid fire that impacted the door like water striking a stone, rolling between the bars of the portcullis and filling in every gap and crevice the wooden structure presented. Charging the door, May's Combusken jumped into the air, its every talon on both feet bursting into flame as it spun through the air and slammed into the door. Spinning like a top the Combusken ripped and tore at the door and the portcullis, working in conjunction with Houndoom's infernal attack and reducing the barrier to a pile of flaming splinters in seconds.

Turning to the third trainer accompanying them as the door fell apart, May motioned for him to stay behind. "Wait here and make sure no one from Magma sneaks up on us," she ordered calmly.

Standing up straight and saluting, the Rocket trainer inclined his head. "Yes ma'am," he answered, turning about and facing down the hallway with his Ariados as May, Odin, and their Pokémon stepped over the flaming debris, the fire jumping up to ineffectually lick at their armor as they walked calmly into the massive chamber beyond.

Looking about, May took a deep breath, noting first the sand filled and stone lined ring in the center of the room, the benches and bleachers lining its walls, and the massively thick skylight set in the ceiling and both supported and protected by dozens of iron bars, each more than three fingers thick. "My father's chambers," she muttered, only then turning her attention on the man standing opposite her on the other side of the sandy ring, his figure only barely illuminated by the skylight and the single gas lamp on the north wall.

Towering at least six and a half feet tall, robed in a heavy cloak dyed red and gold, the Magman trainer stood flanked by a pair of Slugma, and an Armaldo. He looked up from the sand before him at the pair of intruders, folding his hands behind his back as he stepped forward, the thick "M" branded across his face catching the starlight filtering in from the overhead skylight. "Who are you?" he spoke with exceptional calm, each word ringing with perfect clarity. "And what are you doing in my city, much less in my gym?"

May stepped ahead of her partner, walking down the slight incline to the clear side of the enormous sand ring. "I am May Haruka," she called out, "daughter of Norman, and heir to Petalburg. I'm here to liberate my people and take back my city. Now, Magman," she paused and looked over the trainer before her, "who might you be?"

Smirking, the man on the other side of the ring tossed his head to shake his long blonde hair out of his face. "The name's Blaise," he bowed low and mockingly, opening his arms up as he did so. Straightening back up he looked across the ring at his opponent. "It's an honor to meet you, at long last. I'd heard rumors that the Princess of Petalburg, Hoenn's Heir, had been found, spotted far to the west, but never would I have guessed she would stand before me in my own gym."

"My gym," May called back to him, resting one hand on the grip of the sheathed sword hanging from her belt. "As we speak my men are rounding up the last of you occupying filth and taking control of the rest of the city. You've lost Blaise. Petalburg is mine."

As Blaise shook his head, Odin walked forward and stood beside May, flanked by his Houndoom and carrying another pokeball in each hand. "May," he said just loud enough to be heard on the other side of the ring as he looked to the Magman trainer opposite him. "Please, let me have the honor of removing this usurper from your sight."

Hesitating only a moment, May turned to her subordinate and nodded. "Go for it," she said, taking a few steps back and letting Odin take up position on the clear side of the sandy ring.

Throwing the two other pokeballs to the ground, Odin locked his attention on the trainer opposite him as the whirling pyres of light on his either side gradually took shape as two forms. From the blinding maelstroms leapt an Umbreon and a Sneasel, both silent and looking up first at their trainer and then across the ring before them at the three other Pokémon and the Magman soldier. "Care to get started?" he called out.

Blaise threw his head back and laughed a moment, his Pokémon closing in around him as he did. "You must think I'm an idiot," he chortled, regaining his composure. "Like the little cunt says, my men are being taken prisoner and Petalburg is yours." He grinned wide and saluted mockingly. "Until next time then. Smokescreen!" He shouted the order at the top of his lungs.

Odin stabbed one hand forward. "Flame thrower!" he yelled to his Houndoom just as both of Blaise's Slugma erupted in thick clouds of completely opaque smoke.

The black clouds rushed outwards, joining into a single choking smokescreen that filled the room and blotted out all sight. An instant later a line of red fire tore through the smoke, impacting nothing but illuminating a number of both humanoid and animal shapes in the gloom for a split second, just as another four whirling white nimbuses of light appeared and dissipated next to where Blaise had previously stood.

May sucked in a breath in shock, the smoke filling and burning her lungs, prompting her eyes to water and her chest to spasm in protest. Dropping to her knees as the whole room shook and a thunderous boom filled her ears, the young savant heard the order go up behind her. "Fearow, use gust! Clear the smoke!" shouted a familiar voice.

A great wind blasted through the room then, whirling the smoke about and gradually clearing it out, forcing the opaque soot, May noticed, through both the open door behind her and through the great hole blasted through the wall behind where Blaise had stood only a moment before. As the smokescreen cleared, she looked about and saw Odin a few yards ahead of her and both Simon and his Fearow behind her. Blaise, she saw, was nowhere in sight.

Odin swore under his breath, returned his Umbreon and Sneasel to their pokeballs, and stepped up beside May as Simon made his way down the wide stairs to where his commanders stood. Bowing, the redheaded trainer looked between both May and Odin. "The gym is ours," he declared, a wide and jubilant smile on his face. "And Miscarcot sent a runner from the water treatment plant. They've driven the Magman garrison there from their post." he paused and stood up. "The city is yours ma'am, congratulations."

May sighed and closed her eyes, an exceptionally small grin forming on her features. "Good work," she said, opening her eyes reaching out, putting one hand on Odin's shoulder and one on Simon's. "Everyone deserves the congratulations though." She set off for the door through which they had come, Odin and Simon in tow. Making her way through the gym, passing by a fair number of abandoned battle zones marked by burns on the floors, holes blasted in the walls, and a great many pools of blood, May stepped outside the structure and into the fenced in courtyard.

The eastern horizon just beginning to turn orange and illuminate the scene, May looked out over the three dozen trainers carrying Team Rocket's sigil stitched or bolted to their shoulder, standing over the dozens of Magman prisoners. Each of the captured men and women in red and orange wore gags in their mouths and bundles of rope or even chain around their wrists, ankles, and at their chests, binding their arms to their trunks. Most of the captured trainers bore not even a hint of an injury, save the huge M's branded across their faces, though several bled profusely from wounds ranging from lacerations across their scalps to blunt-force wounds all across their bodies. To the latter group, May saw what few medics she brought with her dutifully attending their prisoners' wounds. A little farther away she spotted a few dead Pokémon piled in a corner next to a handful of humanoid shapes covered from head to toe in white tarps.

As the young savant stepped out of the gym, a cheer went up from her men, many of them raising weapons above their heads, beating their gauntlets against their breastplates, or otherwise making a great ruckus as the chant of "victory, victory" rose to the sky. One trainer in particular brandished a tall spear to which he had affixed Team Rocket's flag, bearing the organization's ruby red "R" trimmed in gold thread on a snow white field.

May lifted a hand and a hush fell over the gathered Rockets and prisoners alike. Smiling wide she ran forward and climbed up on the raised brick platform from which a bare flagpole rose. Standing several feet higher than even the largest trainer in the yard, May looked out over her forces. "This city was once the jewel of western Hoenn!" May called out, her voice carrying on the wind well beyond the fence ringing in the gym. "Under my family's rule it flourished, a shining beacon of light and wealth and laughter! And so it shall again!" she shouted even louder, pausing as a thunderous roar went up from her gathered troops.

Waiting a moment longer, May looked through the bars of the iron fence lining the southern end of the gym's grounds. Spotting a number of people beginning to emerge from their homes and from the various apartment buildings surrounding the gym, looking at the proceedings before them with no small degree of trepidation, May smiled to herself, holding out her hand towards the trainer with the Team Rocket flag, motioning for him to come forward, and taking the banner in her hand when he came near.

Holding the banner aloft, May reached to her hip with her free hand and drew her sword with a metallic ring, stabbing the blade towards the sky just as the first rays of morning sunlight shot over the horizon, catching both the flag and the sword. "No longer will the city suffocate beneath the tyrannical grip of some far off warlord!" she shouted as the banner and the sword gleamed like jewels in the light. "Freedom has come to Petalburg at last!" again she paused as another cheer went up from her troops. "Today we've freed Petalburg! Tomorrow we'll free all Hoenn!"

A third thunderous cheer erupted from the trainers gathered around as May hopped down from her stage and handed the banner back to the soldier from which she had taken it. "Raise that over the gym if you'd please," she said, turning back to the gathered crowd and raising her sword over her head. Several minutes rushed by as the cheering and congratulatory shouting faded. May went throughout the crowd, patting shoulders, issuing one 'congratulations' after another, after another, after another, and shaking the hands of every soldier who came within arm's reach.

By the time she had pulled away from the crowd enough to catch her breath, dozens, if not hundreds, of people had emerged from the buildings around the gym and lined the fence along the street to peer in at the strange new forces who had captured the Team Magma trainers and held them prisoner in the yard. The townsfolk looked to be muttering amongst themselves and pointing in at the new occupiers of the gym. Some wore their fear and concern plainly on their faces, shrinking away from any gaze turned their way, while others beamed and held their hands over their heads, shouting their praises at Team magma's apparent downfall.

Looking along the fence at the numerous faces looking in at them, May found Odin and put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him into a hug as he turned around. "Good work in there," she said, stepping back but not releasing her hold in his shoulders. "And excellent job scouting out the city these past several days. Without the intelligence you provided, well, I doubt this would have gone nearly as smoothly as it did today."

Odin shrugged and looked away. "My pleasure," he grinned, looking back at her and trailing off. "Listen, about earlier. May I'm sorry. I didn't want you to think I was getting ahead of myself or trying to make things weird between-"

Leaning forward and pushing herself up, May planted a kiss on Odin's cheek, silencing him instantly. "Tell you what," she said as the boy beside her turned pink in the face, "You're one of the nicest, most enjoyable people to be around I've ever met. So if you want to get a little bit ahead of yourself, that's fine with me."

Staring as much through her as at her, Odin grinned and nodded. "Right," he said almost in a daze, reaching up and touching his cheek with his fingers as May grinned and took a step back. "That works for me, so," he said, shaking himself and coming back from his thousand yard stare. "What's this business about Hoenn's Heir anyway? Blaise mentioned it but I've never heard the term."

May shrugged and folded her arms over her chest. "It's an old story," she said, almost hesitating. "Both my mom and my dad's families descended from two different branches of ancient Hoenn royalty. Some old story supposedly says that when those lines crossed the heir to both families would be Hoenn's Heir. I don't know the source but my mother's grandfather told it to me once."

Odin raised an eyebrow. "So according to this old story you're set to inherit all of Hoenn?"

"That's the thing," May looked at the ground. "Hoenn's Heir, in the story, is supposed to be Hoenn's downfall, not its ruler. The Heir is supposed to completely destroy the land and in the story's words," she trailed off a moment, "undo the foundations of the world."

Odin shook his head. "It's just some stupid story," he said quickly. I wouldn't give it a second thought. Now," he motioned to the crowd gathering outside the wrought iron fence lining the road. "What do you say we go introduce the people of Petalburg to their liberator?"

Shaking her head, May took another step back. "Take a few trainers for security and go open the gate," she said. "Let in anyone who wants a look around and have everyone start spreading the word that Petalburg is no longer under Team Magma's control. I'm," she stopped and looked back at the gym any joy lingering on her face fading away. "I'll be out in a bit. I want to go have a look for my dad's things. I wasn't here when he, when he left, so I'd like to say goodbye, you know?"

Odin put a hand on May's shoulder. "Of course," he said. "Take your time. I'm sure the city will be here when you get back."

May smiled, thanked him, and planted another peck on Odin's cheek before turning back to the gym and walking inside, not looking back as her troops made their way to the gate, opening them wide, and letting any bystanders inside. Making her way through the corridors, guided by the light filtering in through the skylights and the colored windows, May eventually reached the gym's inner sanctum, stepping over the remains of the heavy wooden doors and walking the perimeter of the chamber. Stopping at an innocuous stretch of wall marked only by the remains of a broken gas lamp, May took the neck of the lamp in her hand and gave it a twist.

A quiet hissing issued from the wall as a dark seam appeared next to the lamp, shaping itself into a door and swinging inward. Dust issued from the pitch black room as May stepped inside. She paused as a number of lamps along the walls puffed to life, illuminating around the young savant a lavishly decorated bedroom inside of which every surface bore a thick layer of dust. Walking to a wardrobe opposite the bed, May pulled the doors open, disturbing the dust and filling the air about her with the fine debris. Inside clothes on hangers draped around a suit of armor, flanked by swords and other weapons. At the bottom of the wardrobe a number of steel coffers caught the light from the lamps on the walls.

However, only the massive picture handing on the inside of the wardrobe's door caught and held May's eye.

Stepping back and half falling, half sitting on the bed, May stared at the tall picture, namely at the family it portrayed. Tears formed in her blue eyes and rolled down her cheeks as May stared at the tall, smiling man depicted in the painting, standing with his arms around a beautiful brown haired woman with eyes to match. Directly beside the happy couple and clinging to the father's leg, a little brown haired girl looked up at her parents and smiled as though she had not a care in the world. Lip quivering, May stood up and walked forward to the painting again, reaching forward and resting the tips of her fingers on the woman's cheek while looking into the man's piercing but joyful blue eyes.

"Mom," May looked at the woman in the painting. "Dad," she muttered as she turned her gaze back to the man. "I'm home. I'm back, and I'm going to make things right."


	6. Shelly - Chapter 2 - Foul Weather Friend

Shelly – Chapter Two – Foul Weather Friends

Whipped by the gale-force winds into one blinding sheet after another, the frigid, driving rain battered itself against the floor to ceiling windows of the room in which Shelly sat, producing such a racket the trainer could barely hear herself think. Resting in the rickety chair and facing the tall windows looking east, Shelly stared at the dark sky and frowned. "I hate this fucking country," she growled to herself, kicking up to her feet and pacing around the bare room, knocking about rocks and bits of debris cluttering up the otherwise derelict chamber. "Stupid, asinine, unreliable weather and people to match. Gods above and below I hate it here. It's not even noon and it's looked like midnight for a week. Goddamned worthless country with its goddamned worthless weather."

Turning on her heel and reaching up to pull her loose red hair into a tight ponytail she tied off with a bit of leather, Shelly yanked open the door to her little room and stepped into the dimly lit hall beyond, adjusting the bound leather parcel hanging from her side as she did so. Immediately the sounds of muffled screaming wafting throughout the weather station reached her ears and the Aquan commander paced out into the passage. Passing a number of rooms with open doors she glanced into the chambers as she walked, meeting the gazes of either her own troops who immediately hopped to their feet and saluted as she moved by, the steely gazes of the mercenaries newly added to her list of allies, of the terrified stares of the bound prisoners.

Reaching the end of the hall, Shelly turned to the door from whence the screams originated and slid it quickly open. Stepping inside as the screams grew louder she closed the door behind her. Within the chamber a bed of hot coals smoldered in the center of the room, over which hung a man suspended by ropes wrapped around his wrists and ankles. His body bore countless boils and blisters raised and irritated by the fire beneath him and the ends of his long hair had long since been burnt off. Worse yet, the strips of bamboo meticulously slid beneath the victim's fingernails and left to fester already looked brown and black to the eye, clogged with clotted blood.

Looking up and spotting Shelly, the man above the coals instantly ceased his screaming and began to quiver. "Please," he begged, his tone whimpering. "Please let me down from here," tears streamed down his mottled, blistered face, dripped from his chin, and sizzled on the coals beneath him. "You've got the wrong man!"

Walking to the desk adjacent to the prisoner, Shelly took the leather-bound parcel from her hip and set it on the smooth surface, unrolling it to reveal a great many tools strapped to the leather backing. Pliers, knives, scalpels, hooks, braces, ties and more all caught the twinkling light from the coals, the mere sight of them bringing fresh terror to the prisoner's face.

"So," the Aquan commander faced her prisoner, "apparently you _haven't_ hung around long enough to loosen your tongue. Should I give you a few hours more to think it over?"

Instantly the man's shaking intensified as he looked between Shelly and the implements of torture. "Please!" he shouted. "Please, no more! I told you I don't know anything!"

Shelly stepped up and took the man's chin in her hand, forcing him to crane his neck at an unnatural angle to look up at her. "You're lying to me," she said calmly, no hint of emotion in her tone or manifested on her face. "Your little friends and the mercenaries now working for me ratted on you as the chief researcher for this little project. The only catch that I'm running into is that none of them seemed to know what the goal of this project actually is," she turned back about and drew a scalpel from the implements lying on the desk at the same moment that a flash of lightning shot through the glass windows on the room's northern wall. "Would you care to enlighten me or do I have to start cutting?" she asked,

Face falling, any defiance left in his features draining away, the old man hung his head. "Fine," he said. "Let me down and I'll tell you everything."

Still devoid of any display of compassion, Shelly shook her head. "No, I think not," she said, taking in her hand the rope running through the pulleys bolted into the ceiling which suspended her subject above the coals. "I may not be from around here but even I know not to underestimate an Ever Grande Guardsman, even an old, retired one." Shelly tugged on the rope and shifted the torture victim to his left, away from the coals. "Start talking," she said.

Breathing a sigh of relief, the old man relaxed as much as he could into the ropes suspending him. "My name," he gasped, "is Titus. I work for the Elite Four, currently as a chief researcher and previously as Drake's personal bodyguard."

Grinning, Shelly crossed her bare arms over her chest. "Good boy," she said with mocking civility. "Now tell me, neither the Elite Four nor any of their little lapdogs have set foot off Ever Grande Island in more than a decade. Why would they break that isolation now? What are you doing here? My superiors should very much like to know."

Turning to look out the window as thunder rumbled, Titus took another heavy breath. "It's complicated," he began. "This most recent year brought record numbers of thunderstorms across the continent that resulted in dozens of tornados, floods, and mudslides. Within the last six months eastern Hoenn has been hit by five category five hurricanes, each even worse than the last with a total death toll estimated to be more than twenty-thousand people and countless Pokémon; four of them hit Pacifidlog Town nearly wiping it from the map. Within the last five months there have been six earthquakes greater than a magnitude five across the land; two of them were a six, and one pushed seven on the Logarithmic Energy Release Measurement Scale. Luckily the epicenters were relatively far removed from major population centers but even so, Dewford, Slateport,Lavaridge, Mossdeep, and Sootopolis suffered extensive damage. Long story short, the last twelve months have seen the worst series of natural disasters in our recorded history. The Elite Four sent me here in hopes of finding out what's going on."

Shell raised an eyebrow. "I knew I hated this place for a reason," she said. "And what have you found so far? What's causing all these problems?"

Staring at his torturer a moment, Titus' face grew even graver. "The news is awful," he answered. "Look little lady," the old man went on, "I don't know who you are or what Team Aqua wants with me or this research, but the data scares the living shit out of me and if you have half a brain in your head it'll scare you shitless too. I don't really give a dusty fuck what you do to me, but I'm going to tell you everything we've found in hopes you'll spread the word to the Elite Four. If you don't let me go or send the data we've collected to them, I'd ask, no, I'd _beg_ you to get my findings to Ever Grande. Can you do that, please?"

Mouth dropping open just a little, Shelly took a few seconds to examine the man before her. _The heat must have addled his brain_, thought the Orrean to herself. "Just tell me what you found," she said. "Then I'll decide what to do with the data."

Nodding, Titus adjusted himself on the ropes. "What we found," he trailed off. "Hoenn, no, that's not true, the world is on the brink of an environmental disaster that I worry will leave each and every last human being and Pokémon living on its surface dead within the next decade."

Shelly flinched. "What makes you say that?" she asked. "That's quite a prediction. What evidence do you have?"

"To begin with, ocean temperatures," Titus said flatly. "Until a year ago they'd been stable for a century but our most recent measurements indicate that within the last twelve months the oceans' temperature has risen by three degrees worldwide and the increase shows absolutely no signs of stopping; worse, the rate of the warming is increasing as well. The problem is that the polar lands aren't huge chunks of floating ice," he trailed off. "That would be too easy. They're solid ground _covered_ in ice, so if this warming continues then in ten years all of that ice will melt. If that happens the global sea level will rise by no less than twenty meters and it might rise by as much as fifty. There's just so much goddamned water locked up in all that ice. To further complicate things, dumping all that fresh water into the oceans could seriously throw off the waters' salinization. We can't say for sure but I worry that such a shift in the saltiness of the water could have catastrophic effects ranging from mass extinctions of ocean-dwelling Pokémon, to the death of the kelp beds that provide most of the world's oxygen, to the breakdown of oceanic currents that rely on very delicate balances of salt water versus fresh water.

"To make matters even worse," Titus went on, "global atmospheric temperatures are on the rise as well. It's difficult to determine exactly what's going on, but the average atmospheric temperature, again stable for as far back as you care to measure, has gone up by almost four degrees in the last year alone and it looks like the rate of warming is increasing at the same rate we see the oceans' warming accelerating. As to what's causing the warming, whether we're looking at the ocean or the atmosphere we can't tell. Solar activity is stable and thus can't be the cause. Atmospheric composition, the amount of insulating gasses in the air hasn't changed either so that can't be the problem either; all we can tell is that there's something, something we can't even detect dumping huge, _huge_, amounts of energy into the atmosphere."

A lump forming in her throat, Shelly reached up and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. "And," she said slowly, as if thinking, "what about the earthquakes?" she asked.

Titus shrugged, as much as he could given the ropes. "We can't explain them either," he answered solemnly. "As near as we can tell continental drift is stable. There's no reason we can see for the rise in the number and intensity of the quakes. What we do know is that if the quakes don't stop, it might just set off the super-volcano beneath Mount Pyre. If that happens then it will bury all of eastern Hoenn beneath tens of meters of ash. Additionally it would release countless tonnes of sulfur-dioxide into the atmosphere, poisoning the air and making agriculture across all of Hoenn nearly impossible. Countless people would starve to death.

Titus looked up and straight into Shelly's eyes. "I don't know if you're following me," he continued, "but what I'm describing is the end of the world as mankind knows it. If this warming and these quakes continue it will result in environmental changes so catastrophic that the world we're left with when all is said and done probably won't support humanity."

"So," Shelly dropped her arms and then folded them behind her back as she began to pace, "ocean temperatures are skyrocketing, atmospheric temperatures are climbing through the roof, earthquakes and volcanos are threatening to destroy the world, and you have no idea what's causing it," she stopped pacing and began tapping her foot on the ground. "How do we fix all this?" Shelly asked.

Groaning and adjusting in his airborne prison, Titus tried to shift his weight more comfortably against the ropes. "Actually, my men and I were in the midst of forming a plan to take to the Elite Four before you showed up," he answered exceedingly slowly, as though he measured every word before it left his lips.

Shelly waited a moment before leaning closer to her quarry. "And," she prompted, "what is it old man? We're talking about the end of the world here. Some haste would be nice."

Looking up to his captor, his eyes fresh with some new source of strength, Titus nodded to the leather bound book set on the desk by Shell's torture tools. "My journal," he said calmly, "open it."

Looking between her victim and the table, Shelly crossed the room and picked up the book, parting its covers and turning such that the light from the coals illuminated the vellum pages. "What am I looking for?" she asked.

Titus smirked. "You certainly do have a lot of questions for a man you've spent the last two days slowly murdering." He stopped speaking immediately as Shelly turned and glared at him.

Teeth clenched, the Aquan commander turned back on Titus. "None of that would have been necessary if you had cooperated with me from the start," she growled at him. "Now tell me what we can do to prevent this disaster and I'll get my men right on it. I'll take the data to Archie so he can get the rest of Team Aqua working on a solution." She paused. "Hells below, if your solution sounds workable I might even release you and your men back to the Elite Four so they can get working too." Without hesitating another moment Shelly yanked on the ropes holding Titus aloft, lowering the man to the ground where he collapsed on his hands and knees.

Titus picked himself up, winced in pain, and nodded to the journal. "Page sixty-seven," he said as Shelly flipped through the vellum sheets. "Long story short," the man went on, stepping up beside his captor and looking over her shoulder and down into the book, "Hoenn's most ancient myths tell us of three ancient monsters that inhabit our world, Leviathan, Behemoth, and Ziz, which rule over the waters, the land, and the skies respectively. During the days of old, as an ancient and evil god tried to consume our infant world while it emerged for the first time from chaos. Each of the three monsters took responsibility of a third of the world and working together they safeguarded creation from the evil god. Each of the three then bound their thirds, the water, earth, and air together to make the final form of our world, or so the story goes.

"To this day many of the people of Hoenn worship those three beasts," Titus went on. "And whether or not you buy off on Hoenn's creation myths the gist of the matter is that all three of the ancient beasts still call our world home; Behemoth dwells somewhere beneath the Pyre Mountains, Leviathan sleeps, I believe, in the deepest waters of the Great Trench to the east, and Ziz supposedly circles the world, keeping to the upper atmosphere where it can look down on all of creation."

Scanning through the pages, studying the detailed ink drawings and scrawled notes detailing Titus's theories on the locations of the three monsters, Shelly looked back at her captive. "And they have what to do with the current crisis?" she asked.

Titus reached down to the book as if to turn the page, but instantly recoiled as the bamboo beneath his fingernails contacted the book. Cradling his hand, he looked down to the smooth pages. "Turn to seventy," he instructed.

Doing so, Shelly scanned the pages of the journal. "The World Spirits?" she stated flatly. "What are those?" asked the trainer, reading on when Titus failed to immediately answer. "Control the ancient ones?" she asked, echoing the words in the book and staring at the three orbs glinting on the page, one drawn in ruby red, one in sapphire blue, and the third sketched in emerald green. "How?"

Titus shrugged. "There are many mysteries in our world," he answered. "This, I believe, is one. How the three World Spirits control the great beasts I do not know. I've scoured every corner of Hoenn for information on the subject, but all I know for certain is that the ancients believed the World Spirits, three orbs of a materiel like colored glass, possessed the means to control the ancient ones.

"As near as I can tell," Titus continued, "there are three such artifacts, one for each of the three Ancient Ones, Leviathan, Behemoth, Ziz. I believe that if we could collect all three of the World Spirits, we could use them to awaken the beasts and set nature right. Behemoth could settle the tectonic problems. Ziz could cool the atmosphere. Leviathan I believe can repair the damage done by the warming oceans." He slowly trailed off before speaking again. "The only proofs I have of course are the ancient stories and forgotten myths of people long dead, but with as quickly as this crisis is bearing down on us, I see few other options."

Walking to the windows and looking out into the storm, Shelly thought in silence as several minutes ticked by. "And assuming these three artifacts could be collected and brought together," she said. "How would they be utilized?"

Looking by his captor to the storm raging outside, Titus cleared his throat. "Each of the World Spirits would need to be brought into close proximity with the beast over which they have power," he said, gingerly cradling his mangled hands, looking down at the many bladed implements left on the table. "How that might be accomplished, I cannot say."

Still staring outside, Shelly watched as lightning flashed and illuminated the ground far below her. Shaking her head she folded her hands behind her back. "A problem for later then," she said, turning back around. "I'll let you go back to Ever Grande, Titus," she said flatly. "Take your message to the Elite Four."

Slumping against the wall, Titus breathed a sigh in relief. "Thank you," he said, closing his eyes. "My men and I will depart as soon as you let us."

Turning around, Shelly looked the old man in the eye. "I can only imagine you'll be wanting to take revenge for your torture, your," she paused and looked at the man's hands, "maiming," she stated. "It's only natural. However I'm going to strongly recommend you put this whole nasty incident behind you, primarily because if you do not I will kill you in ways so painful you cannot fathom the pain you would suffer, and secondly because you've convinced me of the importance of collecting the World Spirits."

"Of course," Titus bowed. "Revenge is an overrated concept, of course," he smiled weakly. "Take my journal," he said a moment later. "It might help you on your hunt and there's nothing in there I didn't memorize long ago."

Walking to the table and picking up the book, Shelly tucked it between her hip and her denim skirt, turning afterwards for the door. "I'll send my physician to see to your hands," said the Aquan commander, reaching out and pulling the door open, stepping out, and closing it again after she'd cleared the room.

In the hall beyond, Shelly found two men, both in Aquan armor and colors, waiting silently. One, an exceptionally tall and lean individual who appeared far to gaunt for his already narrow suit of armor, remained standing steadily while the second man inclined his head and dropped to one knee before the woman in blue. Folding her arms and looking down on the man before her, Shelly raised an eyebrow. "You're back early," she said calmly, gesturing for the bowing man to stand. "A week's hardly enough time to get to Petalburg and back, much less gather any great deal of information on our enemy," the woman set off down the hall with her two companions in tow. "Tell me what you learned."

As the trio arrived back in Shelly's private room, stepping inside and leaving the door open behind them, the shorter man, his clothes and muddy brown hair soaked with rain, wiped his forehead and eyes to clear them of both perspiration and rainwater. "May Haruka has made fair progress," he began. "Her forces evicted Team Magma's garrison from Petalburg barely a fortnight ago and she's been solidifying her grip on the region ever since. She moved her fleet of ships to Route One-Oh-Four to cut Magma's southern and eastern cells off from their northern support. The people of the city adore her, probably because she slashed their taxes and opened Magma's private grain houses to them. Her forces have swelled with local volunteers and it seems she's focusing primarily on rebuilding Petalburg's infrastructure. When I left nearly half the city had electricity and running water."

Nodding along, Shelly turned to again stare out the window. "That's all to be expected," she said. "What about the cities to the east? Has she made a move on Oldale or Littleroot yet?"

The scout, a lightly tanned young man no older than twenty who stood far shorter than his silent companion, shook his head. "Not yet, but my men reported that Magma is massing its forces in Oldale. If Haruka tries to move east she'll have a fight on her hands."

Shelly thought a moment. "And if she tries to move north she'll have an even bigger fight on her hands. Magma will not give up Rustboro without a fight. May will move on Oldale within a week. She has no choice but to take the city; from it she can use the river and the basin to strike at Littleroot, Mauville, Verdanturf, and Slateport simultaneously, after which Dewford will join her on account of being utterly surrounded and she'll control all the Southlands," Shelly looked up at both her confederates, a furious frown set on her features. "If Aqua loses Slateport," she trailed off.

"There's one other thing," the scout mentioned as his counterparts remained silent and Shelly looked up at him. "On the last day we had Petalburg under observation a storm rolled in from the sea. Petalburg sets right at sea level of course, and as the storm looked like it was going to smash the levies apart. So my boys and I were getting ready to blight off," the scout's hands grew animated as he spoke and excitement crept into his narration, "but the damndest thing happened." He stopped.

Shelly waited a moment before snapping at him. "And," she prompted, loudly and sharply.

Shaken from his memory, the scout looked down at his commander. "That May Haruka, she came climbing onto the gym's roof, walked to the western edge of the building, the one that faces the sea? Anyway, she reaches out with her hand and, and it was the most amazing thing. This ball of blue light appeared in her hand and started shining like a little sun. Just then the storm surge came rolling up on the city like a tsunami, but when it got to the edge of town, the wave leapt up like it had run into some invisible wall. The whole wave turned away and rolled back out to sea without touching Petalburg. Even more amazing, as May stood there with the orb the rain and the wind died down to nothing, the sky cleared of clouds, and the storm just went away."

Shelly stood absolutely still. Without a word leaving her lips she stared at the wall as realization sprang to her face. A second later she turned to the tall man who had yet to speak. "You still have that arrow I gave you?" she asked, waiting to continue until the silent soldier patted a long pocket running down the side of his leg and smiled in response. "Get ready to use it," she said then. "Gather the men and mount up," Shelly stormed from the room, drawing the leather journal and flipping through its pages. "We ride for Petalburg in one hour."

As the archer and the scout saluted and walked by her, the smaller of the two men shouting orders through the hall and into the rooms on either side, Shelly scanned through the pages of the journal. As the minutes ticked by, Shelly's Aquan troops and their mercenary companions set about breaking their camp and gathering up anything useful they could find throughout the weather center while Shelly read intensely.

Eyes going wide, Shelly tapped her finger on one particular passage near the end of the journal. "Here," she muttered to herself. "Hoenn's Heir," she said a moment later, her eyes hungrily roaming over the pages. Features growing slightly paler, the young commander shook her head. "This bitch has got to die," she stated flatly, "before she gets any more powerful."


	7. The Orrean - Chapter 1- Fate's Left Hand

AN: Fair warning everyone, I've been reviewing my previous outlines for this fic and have found them severely wanting. I've come to the conclusion that FotW will in fact need to be longer than I originally estimated in order to accommodate the perspectives I want to put on display. Sorry if this turns anyone off.

* * *

><p>The Orrean – Chapter One – Fate's Left Hand<p>

The main room of the cramped inn smelled of mud and smoke. No illumination save the occasional flash of lightning from the storm outside filtered through the institution's dark windows, leaving only the clock above the bar to alert the patrons to the hour remaining before sunrise. Even this measure of time meant little to the building's occupants as the sun had failed to pierce the storming clouds overhead since the monsoon had settled over Petalburg more than a week prior. Rain washed against the inn's windows like the surf on a beach and, having so soaked the wooden frame of the building, dripped from the rafters and seeped into the establishment through the swollen wooden frames surrounding the windows. Little rivulets ran down the walls beneath the windows and pooled in cracks and corners while the trespassing rainwater falling from overhead plipped into buckets set on tables or free zones of floor.

Beside one such bucket in a corner of the room far from either of the two dim lamps attempting to light the room, the creaking protest of a wooden chair bore the only witness to its occupant shifting his considerable weight. The lean figure, hooded and cloaked in robes so deeply black his silhouette stood out against the relatively bright gloom of the nearly unlit corner of the inn, leaned forward over his table, filling the air around him with the sound of well-oiled steel plates gliding over one another. Reaching up with a hand armored by a glove covered in sliding scales of black metal, the cloaked figure pulled his hood a little lower and got to his feet as the door to the inn's otherwise unoccupied foyer opened.

Accompanied by the sudden din of driving rain, the heavy thudding of steel boots and the lightest flapping of thick leather cloaks wafted across the chamber of the inn and reached the figure in the corner. From beneath his hood the man in black watched as another character dressed identically to himself strode into the room, followed by another such individual, and then another. Without a word eleven such travelers, hooded and cloaked and each indistinguishable from those around them, filed into the room and stood by the door as the waiting twelfth crossed the chamber and stood before the new arrivals. Only when he stood a pace away from the eleven did the twelfth reach up to his hood, stirring his robe enough to reveal the long, wickedly serrated sword hanging from his hip, and pull the cowl away from his face.

Removing then the layers of dark cloth that wrapped his head, the fair skinned young man beneath the hood looked over the silhouettes gathered before him. "Everything is in order?" he asked, his voice rough and low.

The foremost of the remaining hooded figures then inclined his head, exaggerating the motion as to ensure the gesture not be missed. "Exactly as you ordered, master," responded the whisper beneath the cowl. "The plan proceeds at your leisure."

Reaching forward, the young master put a hand on the shoulder of the figure before him. "Thank you Six," he said, moving then to rewrap the dark clothes around his head and thus obscure his muddy hair while leaving only his black eyes exposed beneath his hood. "For the fatherland," he whispered.

Eleven whispers then echoed the hushed call, "for the fatherland," as the black-eyed master strode through the gathered figures and into the pre-dawn storm outside as the remaining eleven fell in behind him.

The sheer weight of their cloaks holding the cloth steady in the driving rain, the twelve cloaked figures stalked into the streets of Petalburg, angling westward. Only once did they encounter a traveler out in the storm, an old man pushing a covered cart through the mud. The weathered senior, struggling against the rain to move his wares looked up from his labor too late to note the cloaked figures moving towards him like a cloud of fog; he loosed a scream of shock when he found himself so suddenly in their midst and completely towered over by their silhouettes. Immediately the cloaked figure nearest the old man drew from within the confines of his robe a blackened steel sword, leaning forward as if to set upon the old man and aiming the tip of the weapon at the traveler's heart. Just as quickly though, the young master spun around and grabbed his subordinate's sword, itself a weapon no shorter than four feet long and baring hooked spikes from its hilt to nearly halfway up the blade. Shaking his head, the leader released the blade and turned back to his path without another word or gesture. As the old man in the street cowered beside his cart, the cloaked figures stepped around him without any apparent acknowledgement whatsoever, one man sheathing his sword as he walked.

Reaching the gates of the Petalburg Gym, the twelve figures stepped up to and stood in front of the heavy metal bars separating the private grounds from the rest of the city. On the opposite side of the gate, three men in Team Rocket's red and black armor warmed themselves around a large fire beneath a canvas shelter. One, a ruddy-haired youth looked up and flinched when he saw the new arrivals, alerting his comrades to the visitors' presence with his startled call of 'Who goes there?' As his two companions each drew a pokeball from their belt with one hand and went to the melee weapons at their sides with their other, the leader of the twelve stepped closer to the gate and raised his hands to rest them on the thick steel bars.

Leaning forward as though he meant to press his face to the gate, the hooded master surveyed the three men opposite him. "An envoy meaning to treat with May Haruka and her advisors," he called out, his voice more than strong enough to reach over the howling wind. "We bring word from the north of Team Magma's plans to strike a coup d'etat against her."

Among the Rocket guards, the eldest present looked to his two subordinates and, nodding to one who immediately turned on his heel and darted towards the Gym, stepped in front of the other. "Do they normally receive guests so early in the morning where you all come from?" he asked, producing from the pouch at his side a heavy key, sliding it into the lock fastened to the gate and undoing the ponderous latch. "And what's with the assassin getups?"

As the guard, a burly character looking to be in his mid-twenties, rolled the gate open for the travelers he stepped aside and gestured for everyone to enter the grounds. Wordlessly the twelve men strode into the courtyard and surrounded the remaining two guards, then without a second's hesitation two of the cloaked figures took hold of their swords and swung the weapons though the air in a pair of deadly arcs. The blades passed through the guards' necks as if their steel edges met no resistance and immediately thereafter the resultant severed heads splashed down in the soggy mud. Even before the truncated bodies fell however, two more of the assassins stepped forward and caught them under the arms, holding the bodies upright as yet two more of the cloaked killers moved in and set to undoing the ties and buckles holding the dead men's' armor about their bodies.

By the time the first pair of killers had followed through on their initial blows and sheathed their swords, the executed guards lay naked in the mud, their heads and their untouched pokeballs beside their corpses as their armor and uniforms were carried off by the remaining ten assassins. Turning and walking backwards towards the gate, the two rearguard assassins scanned the courtyard and, finding it void of observers, rejoined their party with neither hesitation nor comment.

The twelve assassins made their way south then, spiriting the two uniforms and sets of Rocket armor into assorted bags they quickly hid on their persons. Trekking through the muddy streets at a brisk pace as the gym disappeared into the storm behind them and the falling rain pooled and washed at the edges of their tracks, they reached the edge of town and, by way of a narrow footpath winding into the brush beyond the city, left Petalburg behind. For an hour they walked uphill as the brush grew denser and taller around them, a forest gradually growing out of the undergrowth. Turning suddenly from the footpath the leader of the band walked into the woods and, scanning a few of the trees spotted his mark. Stepping beside an inconspicuous ash, the master felt along its branches until his fingers found the subtle notch carved into the bark facing away from the footpath. Waiving for his companions to join him, the master lead his party on a path turning sharply east and winding for the next two hours into a series of small hills.

The party came upon and turned to follow a rushing stream that had by all appearances swollen with rainwater and runoff. Crossing the stream and rounding a bend in the hills the twelve found their destination. The narrow mouth of the cave disguised a wide chamber beyond that sloped up and away from the rain, into which the party disappeared. Stopping within the confines of the natural shelter one of the travelers drew from his cloak a flint and steel. Kneeling down by a carefully constructed fire pit stacked with dried logs, he struck the flint and lit the party's campfire. As the warming light and smell of charred ash spread through the cave, the twelve assassins drew from the edges of the cave meticulously stored chairs and benches of roughhewn wooden planks, setting them in a circle around the fire. Ten then sat down and began removing their cloaks and the masterfully crafted suits of blackened armor beneath while the remaining pair, including their dark-eyed master, stood at the mouth of the cave and kept watch.

Reaching up and pulling the wraps away from his face without pulling back his hood, the master rolled his head to one side and then the other, noisily popping the joints in his neck and shoulders. "Well Six, shall we have a look at the take?" he grinned, turning to his watch partner, kneeling and pulling one of the plundered Rocket uniforms from beneath his cloak. His partner likewise, and silently, drew a similar red and black set of clothes from his pack and together the men held the garments towards the firelight, inspecting them briefly.

Six, the dark skin of his brow furrowing as he examined the uniform, turned the article of clothing this way and that an over in his hands as he inspected it. "Not a drop of blood," he said, his voice relaxed and tone measured. "Two and Three performed as expected." He turned his eye to the uniform under his counterpart's inspection. "Yours?"

Rubbing the cloth collar of the shirt between his finger and thumb, the master nodded approvingly. "Got to hand it to those twins," he said, "smooth work. The rest of the team really pulled it off fantastically too, stripping the bodies and getting out of sight in seconds? That's a tall-" he stopped and turned to look out the mouth of the cave.

His gaze following his master's as his hand went to the pokeball at his side, Six stared intently out of the party's hideout, his ears visibly twitching as he listened for danger. "Master?" he asked.

The black-eyed youth relaxed some and took a step backwards into the cave. "Thirteen," he nodded towards the distance just as another figure, this one hooded and cloaked in black just like the others emerged from the trees blocking the cave entrance from view of the stream.

Jogging to the mouth of the cave the new arrival pulled his hood and cowl from his dark and angular features, exposing his face to the nearby sentries. "My prince," he said, stopping in front of the cave and turning from one of the guards to the next, sounding more than a little out of breath, "Six."

Reaching forward and putting a hand on the newest party member's shoulder, the fair skinned youth knelt down a little to put his face on an even level with Thirteen's. "Glad you could finally join us," he said, not impolitely. "What have you to report?"

Taking several deep breaths, stepping up beside the other two sentinels, and leaning against the stony wall of the cave, Thirteen nodded and reached for a canteen hanging at his side. "Happy to say the mission was a dazzling success, my master," he answered, stopping then to take a long draw of water from the steel canister. "I snuck in, saw what there was to see, and got out without alerting a soul."

The young master waited a moment, though impatience spread across his features. "And?" he probed, failing to so much as twitch as a huge pop sounded from the campfire in the cave some ten paces behind him. "What was the situation?"

Straightening up and taking one final breath before ostensibly regaining his complete composure, Thirteen reached up and dragged the back of his gloved hand across his dark brow to wipe away the sweat beading there. "I got a look into Haruka's war-room," he produced from the folds of his cloak a small plastic cylinder with a glass lens on one end and a bronze lever on the other, "it's all on film but essentially it looks like Haruka's planning on moving her forces against Oldale. From there she's planning on using the river basin to strike the surrounding cities."

The young master raised an eyebrow. "Bold plan," he muttered, reaching to his flank and drawing from his pocket a small bundle of vellum pages wrapped in coarse leather and bound with a leather thong.

Shrugging, Thirteen went on. "She's got the numbers for it now though, been recruiting heavily among the mercenaries to the south and from the tribes along the coast, buying their loyalties with promises of land captured from Magma and Aqua." He paused and looked out from the mouth of the cave as mist began to fall and blanket the party's little valley with glittering dew. "Got a look at May herself while I was there too," he said, waiting as his prince looked up from the pages of the little book.

Pausing in the middle of turning a page, the dark-eyed prince looked up. "And?" he probed again. "How is she?"

Thirteen sighed and scratched at the top of his bald head, his fingers lingering a moment on gnarled scar that seemed to twist up and out of his obsidian scalp and across the roof of his head like a grey worm. "She's beset by some affliction her physicians can't diagnose," said the man in the black cloak. "She works at running the city and her affairs maybe three or four hours a day before fatigue forces her to retire; she sleeps no less than twelve hours a day and spends the remainder in her bed, shivering and sweating. More and more," he continued solemnly, "she relies on her second in command, a young captain from the Orange Islands named Odin, to conduct her affairs."

Flipping through the pages in the book, the prince stopped on one near the end, staring down at the blue runes scrawled on the vellum. "I think," he said, trailing off as he read and looked at the illustration, a sapphire blue circle etched beside a picture of some great Pokémon bearing fins and glowing red eyes. "I think we can safely assume May Haruka has in her possession the Ocean Spirit," he said.

Quickly the prince turned to the rest of his black-clad followers in the cave. "Seven, Nine!" he called out, waiting then as two of the figures leapt to their feet and strode across the cave to meet him. The dark-eyed youth took up the Team Rocket uniform he'd set by his foot and then turned to Six, taking from his the other uniform before returning to the two new arrivals and holding the two sets of clothes out at arm's length. "Get dressed you two," he said as the man and the woman before him both discarded their black cloaks, took the clothes from him, and began undoing the straps and ties that held their armor around their frames.

The woman, a muscled creature with a figure so androgynous that as she stood naked in the cave that only her face and her genitals betrayed her sex, spoke up. "My prince," she said flatly, stepping into the pants of the Team Rocket uniform and pulling them up to her waist while pulling on the black and red vest, covering up the countless scars and old burns that covered her legs and wound up her frame, across her torso and breasts before terminating suddenly at her neck. "Forgive my impertinence," she inclined her head, letting her long and wavy raven hair spill down her shoulders, "but we do not have the facilities to contain the Ocean Spirit, much less safely transport it. Are you certain you wish Nine and this one to bring it here?"

The prince grinned. "You mistake my meaning," he said. "Seven, I don't want you to bring the Ocean Spirit here, nor do I want you to touch one hair on May's head." He held the leather book up high enough for those around him to see. "If Professor Oak was right, and when has he ever _not_ been," the youth returned the bound collection of pages to his cloak, "then only a savant can resist possession by the Spirits, and even then only temporarily.

"You and Nine," the prince looked between the woman and the man who now stood before him in the Rocket uniforms, "are to safeguard May at all costs. She'll act as our containment for the Ocean Spirit until the rest of us can track down and acquire the other two. Until such a time as all three Spirits are accounted for, you both," he gestured between Seven and Nine, "are to ensure May remains both alive and in possession of the Ocean Spirit."

The man in the Rocket uniform, Nine, cleared his throat and spoke in a quiet tone that seemed to match his lean figure. "Consider it done, my prince," he pressed his hand over his heart and bowed low as Seven did likewise.

His dark eyes softening as he smiled, the Prince nodded approvingly. "I'm counting on you two," he said. "You'll have free reign to do whatever you deem necessary in pursuit of the mission," he trailed off and swallowed the lump in his throat. "I know we've gotten used to working together, but it may be a while before we speak again. If there's an emergency, you know how to reach me. Now," he spoke slowly and nodded towards the mouth of the little cave. "Go make me proud."

Seven and Nine both bowed low a second time and, without hesitation, turned for the wilderness and jogged off into the rain. The prince, Six, and Thirteen watched as the two agents disappeared around the little bend in the terrain before Thirteen took his leave and joined the rest of the darkly dressed figures around the campfire in the heart of the cave. Six and the prince, then left to themselves at the stony entrance stood in silence and kept watch for some time as the already ashen clouds overhead grew yet darker.

Clearing his throat, Six turned to the prince and spoke quietly, in a whisper barely audible. "You know," he leaned against the stone wall facing directly away from the party around the campfire, "it might be safer to just kill May and bring the Ocean Spirit here. Keeping her alive might complicate things unnecessarily."

The prince shook his head. "Only a savant can resist possession," he whispered back.

"So you'd be just fine," Six responded.

"For a time," the prince nodded. "But you heard what Thirteen said about May. The Ocean Spirit is already poisoning her mind." He paused and all levity melted from his face. "I would very much like my mind to remain un-poisoned for as long as possible."

Six sighed. "How long do you think the girl will be able to resist the corruption?"

"According to Oak's notes," the prince prefaced his statement, "probably not more than a year. She'll get worse and worse, slowly descend into madness, extreme paranoia, and eventually death."

Folding his arms before his chest, the tall man with the dark cloak grimaced. "By now news will likely have reached home that their attempts to smuggle the Ocean Spirit to Orre has failed. We'll have to work quickly to track down the other two."

The prince nodded. "Well that was the plan from the start, my friend." He stopped and looked out of the mouth of the cave, some expression perhaps distantly related to longing settling on his face. "Orre," he muttered to himself, drawing in a slow breath. "No small part of me wants to just go back, forget this whole thing and just go home. I miss it so terribly but I can't just let this," he trailed off.

Six put his hand on his young master's shoulder. "You're doing the right thing," he said reassuringly. "And we're behind you to the death. Master or no, our prince or not, we have your back."

"Right," the dark-eyed prince nodded and sighed again. "Doing the right thing," he echoed.


	8. May - Chapter 3 - Cold Hard Calculus

May – Chapter Three – Cold Hard Calculus

Alone at the end of a dimly lit hallway, May stood facing the floor to ceiling windows as a thunderstorm raged outside. Flash after flash of lightning lit the grey clouds as one sheet of rain after another slapped against the glass, miniature rivers streaming down the pane and distorting any view the trainer before them might have had of the outside world. Beyond the glass sat the city of Petalburg, entrenched in a thick mist brought on by the exceptionally humid storm that submerged the town in the atmosphere of a concrete swamp. Outside, peals of thunder punctuated the constant drone of the humming insects and the driving rain while rhythmically and predictably sending tremors running through the frame of the Petalburg Gym, the structure currently repurposed as May Haruka's forward base of operations.

May however paid no attention to the storm raging outside her window. Leaning forward some and supporting her weight by one forearm pressed up against the glass, May bent over and stared down at her palm, in which rested the blue orb, gleaming like a fist-sized sapphire. Sweat beading on her forehead, mouth hanging open as she took slow, deep breaths, May stared down at the orb, her eyes seemingly focused on a point deep within or far beyond the glowing sphere. The young savant tightened her grip on the artifact, her leather gloves creaking beneath her strength as her eyes narrowed and she began breathing more quickly.

Listening as a chorus of ghostly voices whispered between her ears, a frigid dread crept into the pit of the girl's stomach, clawing its way up to her heart and intensifying the beating in her chest. Wondering if perhaps this is what losing one's mind felt like, May brought the orb higher and pressed it against her chest, over her heart, and closed her eyes. The action brought no comfort, May thought to herself, but nevertheless she cleaved to it, terrified of what would happen if she dared let it out of her sight. Taking several more deep breaths, May fought the anxiety welling up in her with the knowledge that the orb was safe in her possession and no one could take it from her. That thought, she felt, at least checked the advance of the panic festering in her heart, though she realized plainly it did nothing to set her at ease.

May gritted her teeth. "Mine," she growled, her voice tight as beads of perspiration rolled down her forehead and cheeks and dripped from the tip of her nose and her chin. A sudden weight on her shoulder sending jolts of electricity through her frame, the savant whirled around and gasped in shock, recoiling and practically falling against the glass window with a thud.

Likewise recoiling from his superior's reaction to his presence, Odin twitched back and pulled his hand away as May reflexively reached to the pokeball at her belt. Holding his hands up as if to shield himself from her, Odin spoke with a measured calm and walked forward, more confidently now as May dropped her shoulder and let her hands fall to her side. "Ma'am?" Odin asked quietly, quite obviously making every effort to sounds as soothing as possible. "Stupid question, I know, but how are you holding up?"

Leaning against the window and clutching the blue orb to her, May strained as though every muscle in her body ached and her face radiated no small amount of pain. "I've certainly been better," she answered. Watching concern grow on Odin's features, May looked down at the floor and back up at him. "I'll be OK," she went on. "Just give me a few minutes more to get my head on right and I'll be back."

Pausing a moment, hesitating to answer, Odin responded slowly. "May," he said. "You've been gone an hour already. People are starting to wonder."

Shock shot through May's eyes. "Odin I," she stammered, looking between her subordinate and the orb in her hand. "I'll be right in."

May stepped forward as though she meant to walk by her second-in-command, but Odin reached out and took her gently but firmly by the arm. "May," he muttered concern plain in his voice. Staring at the floor at the end of the hall, May stood without answering for a moment before the young soldier beside her continued. "You're not eating. You're not sleeping. You're looking every day a little more like death. Ever since that _thing_" he looked at the shining blue crystal she held, "took hold of you the other week all you've done is slink away to stare at it and brood," Odin paused and clenched his jaw.

Looking up as her visage darkened, May slowly but without hesitation pulled her arm from his grip. "You'll watch your words," she said quietly. "I _am_ your commander."

Balling his hands into fists, Odin turned to look uncomfortably down the hall before returning his full attention to May. "You know you're more to me than that," he answered. "That's why I'm worried. That thing, it isn't good for you. I can't just watch as it drains the life out of you."

Taking a step back, May clutched at the orb a little tighter. "We're not going to have this conversation again. It saved us all Odin," she answered, in her voice a combination of anger and fear. "Without it Petalburg would have-"

"Survived that storm surge," Odin interrupted, going on before May could take back control of the conversation despite the chagrin on her features. "I watched everything that happened," he spoke quickly. "And I didn't like what I saw. When that storm got bad and we received word a surge was coming, you flew into a full-on trance: a glassy eyed, speechless, walking-death. I'm not kidding May, I was scared for you." Any hint of anger in Odin's face melted into what sounded of genuine concern. "I _am_ scared for you," he looked back down at the orb. "After you turned back that wave you dropped like a corpse May. You were out for days. And now, now it's like you're half alive. You're not well and that thing," Odin stabbed his finger at the blue sphere, "is the cause and you damn well know it."

May pressed her lips together and took another step away from him. "So what would you recommend?" she barked at him.

"Let me take a ship," Odin answered without hesitation. "Give me that thing, I'll take it a thousand miles out to sea, and send it to the bottom of the ocean."

Recoiling as though she'd been struck, May shook her head. "Absolutely not," she spat as though she were seconds from screaming at him. "You'll do no such thing. Odin," she held the orb at chest level, "how can you not see we need this? If it turned back a storm surge. It called all those Pokémon to the ghost ship. Who knows what else it's capable of? We can harness that and we can use it to-"

Again Odin cut May off, this time by stepping forward and grabbing her shoulders with both hands. "Whatever it's capable of, the price isn't worth it May," he blurted. "You're getting weaker by the day and, well have you looked in a mirror lately?" he asked, his tone almost pleading. "Sunken cheeks, dark bags under your eyes, cold, clammy skin, no color in your face" he looked down to her. "You can't just make those go away by wearing gloves and makeup. Please," he went on. "You need to let me help you."

Pulling away from him, May sidestepped and walked a few feet by Odin, opening up and depositing the blue orb into a leather pouch on her hip. "I don't _need_ anything, least of all insubordination," she said, looking straight ahead. "Now either follow me and don't bring this up again, or take your ship and go home," May stopped and looked over her shoulder at her second. "Which will it be?"

Shoulders dropping, Odin sighed. "I'll follow you wherever," he answered. "I'm here for you whether you like it or not."

Looking back at the sandy haired captain, May waited a moment before turning forward again and wiping the sweat from her brow. "Why do I feel I haven't heard the last of this?" she muttered, setting off down the hall with Odin in tow.

The two trainers moved silently down the corridor as the storm raged outdoors. Without speaking to one another they listened to the rain falling on the roof and made their way towards the southern end of the gym. Passing through a final doorway and into the gym's main chamber, May scanned the scene before her. Walking to the stage and the comfortable chair set up on the northern end of the sandy pit in the center of the chamber, May ascended the steps to her seat and counted the people gathered on the southern end of the pit.

Flanked by a dozen of her Rocket guards and their various Pokémon, May set herself in the chair and leaned back, sighing and overwhelmed with gladness to be sitting down. She motioned to the foremost of the thirty or so people lined up opposite the sandy pit. "Please, approach," she said, forcing herself to smile welcomingly and adopt a friendly tone. Waiting as an old man dressed in a rough tunic and breeches, his feet wrapped in strips of cloth in place of proper shoes stepped into the center of the chamber's central depression, May leaned forward in her chair. "What can I do for you?" she asked.

His wrinkled face looking from side to side and wracked with apparent fear, the old man quickly and quietly uttered a few words in a language few in the room understood. Though his dark skin hid the feature at first, as the man spoke May noted a series of dark bruises winding over his face. She also spotted the way in which he obviously favored his right side when he walked, leading the girl to wonder what recent injury prompted his manner. As the man spoke however, his words registering on May's face with growing shock, May's many guards looked at one another in confusion.

Odin, standing directly beside his commander and drawing a ledger and pen from his pack, leaned towards May's seat once the man finished speaking. "What language is he speaking?" asked the captain. "I can't understand a word he's saying."

May sighed and, before acknowledging her second-in-command, responded to the aged man in the depression, speaking in a dialect identical to his own. As she spoke, the poorly dressed plaintiff began bowing and averting his eyes from the young savant. The man and the girl exchanged a few more sentences in the odd language and he, still bowing and speaking ecstatically, bowed so low his forehead nearly brushed the floor and began stepping backwards away from the pit.

As the elderly petitioner turned and vacated the room, May turned to Odin who immediately raised his ledger, prepared to take down her instructions. "That was Hassren Oldomin, an elder from a community of refugees living here in Petalburg. He said his people were displaced by earthquakes and tsunamis along the coasts to the south and they've been living here for the last several years under the protection of Team Magma."

Odin nodded, taking down a few notes as May spoke. "And what did he want?" asked the captain.

May attempted to stifle a groan. "He said that several Team Rocket soldiers came to his home last night in pursuit of that stone-thrower who nearly brained Simon yesterday. He tried to tell them the boy was a member of his community and they would see to his punishment themselves, but given that only one of my men spoke anything even remotely resembling his dialect and only brokenly at that, there was a misunderstanding; Oldomin and his son were badly beaten and threatened with further violence if they caused any more trouble in the future."

Wincing as he wrote, Odin mouthed a silent profanity. "Wonderful public relations," he muttered as nearby one of the Rocket trainer's Pokémon, a Chameleon, stepped too close to another trainer's Wartortle and recoiled with a loud hiss that sent waves of murmuring through the crowd gathered opposite the stage. "And what was our resolution of the situation?"

May leaned a little closer to him. "I told him Simon would drop all pursuit of the boy who threw the rock. In addition we would lower his community's tax requirements by one hundred aurans for the next year."

Odin's pen ceased its squiggling as he looked up. "That's going to go over well, with the other taxpayers _and_ the coffers. Commander," he took a step closer to May's seat and spoke almost in a whisper, "our budget is already stretched a little thin given the," he paused and searched for words, "shall we say 'disappointing' take from Team Magma's stockpiles and all of our other expenses."

May raised a hand. "I'm aware of the situation," she answered. "But it can't be helped. We need to keep the old man happy unless we want a thousand potential soldiers defecting from our side to Magma's or Aqua's." She turned away from her subordinate and to the next man in line opposite the stage. "Please, approach," she called to the young man across from her, his well-trimmed tunic glittering with red and silver and immediately catching the savant's eye. "What can we do for you?" she asked as the man stepped down into the sand.

His black eyes and dark hair caching the light of the dozens of lamps scattered through the room as he did so, the man bowed and subsequently straightened up. "You have my sincerest gratitude for allowing me to stand in your presence, milady," he said in an exceptionally smooth baritone with a rolling accent. "Miles Mercangild at your service."

"Mercangild," May repeated, leaning forward in her seat, working to disguise her taking of a deep and labored breath. "That name with your accent," she went on, "I'd think you were a northerner."

Miles bowed low again. "Indeed," he answered. "I was bred and raised in Rustboro but my parents came from Fallarbor originally. It was from them I inherited our family business and the North's heartbreakingly good looks."

May nodded. "And what can we do for you?" she pressed, not impolitely.

Clearing his throat, Miles folded his arms behind his back. "My family runs the largest bank in the west, the Golden Guild, indeed one of the largest banks in all of Hoenn and the only such institution on the continent to survive the civil war. We have dozens of facilities across this land and several more in Johto.

"I come to you with a concern on behalf of the Mercangilds," he went on. "For you see, Petalburg's previous occupiers, Team Magma, owe a great deal of money to my family. They would regularly take out sizable loans to fund their operations, paying us back with a combination of taxes drawn off the local populations and further loans from my bank. Naturally this strategy of theirs left them in deep, deep debt. So deep in fact are their commitments that recently they've had to redirect most of their income to simply pay the interest on their loans and I've heard rumors that they're contemplating requesting yet more advances to try and pay down what they already owe. Understandably my peers and I have begun to worry that we may never see the return of our money, much less a return _on_ it."

Leaning further forward and resting her elbows on her knees, May folded her hands over one another. "Interesting," she said cautiously. "So why exactly are you bringing this to my attention. Don't get me wrong," she held her hands up, "I appreciate knowing the logistical problems of my competitors, but what does this have to do with me?"

Miles grinned. "The Golden Guild is worried that Team Magma might have been a bad investment," he said. "They've squabbled over Hoenn for years and recently they've suffered one defeat after another at Team Aqua's hand. As such we're looking for alternate opportunities, which is why I've come to you.

"We are prepared," the banker held out one hand as though physically proffering the deal, "to fund your fight against Team Magma and Team Aqua, advancing you up to four million aurans. That is of course assuming you agree to a few negligibly easy conditions."

May's jaw dropped open a little. She took a moment to shake herself from her surprise before going on. "Four million?" she repeated, no small amount of shock in her voice. "I didn't know there was that much gold in all of Hoenn."

Standing beside her, his ledger and pen still firmly grasped in one hand, Odin cleared his throat, drawing May's attention. When she looked up at him, Odin spoke so quietly even those directly around them couldn't make out exactly what he said. "Bad idea," whispered the captain as May listened without speaking. "If they're willing to finance you to destroy Team Magma because Magma couldn't pay back their loans, what's to stop these bankers from turning on us if we can't pay them back on their terms?"

May looked back down at the banker before her, thinking to herself. "And what would those _negligible_ conditions happen to be?" she asked, her tone steady.

Again Miles folded his hands behind his back. "Of course I would never think to offer you this opportunity unless we at the Golden Guild genuinely wanted you to succeed, but we also need to see a return on our investments. As such you would be assigned an interest rate of a laughable one half of one percent on this forty year loan, assuming you agree to pay back in full what Team magma owes my family."

May thought a moment, her eyes focused on the floor at Miles' feet while she ran the numbers in her head. "You must be desperate to recoup Magma's losses if you're offering a deal that amazing. How much do they owe?"

Miles went on without hesitation. "Seven million aurans," he stated. "And before you ask, the terms of the agreement I'm prepared to offer would _not_ include their debt in your principal; their commitments would be paid back separately and would thus not be affected by your interest rate."

Odin, lowering his ledger again leaned down to whisper to his commander. "This is a bad deal for us," he said flatly. "We get four million but have to pay back eleven million plus interest on the four while this banker collects not only our payments but whatever he's squeezing out of Magma for the duration of their existence? Then if we fall behind he can take all the money he's made off us and use it to fund our enemies. I'd strongly advise against this."

Whispering back, May shifted to her right, a little closer to her second. "This could be a great opportunity," she said quietly. "That kind of money would be enough to hire every mercenary company on the continent and sick them on Magma _and_ Aqua. Even then we'd have enough left over to raise and outfit another army if we really needed to."

Odin shook his head. "And then we'd have to pay back an enormous amount of money, of which we barely got use of a third, after having just fought a very costly war. Plus it looks like Magma is getting ready to collapse under its own debt anyway, so let's let these bankers take their usury to Team Aqua instead so they can step on the same nest of Beedrill Magma did. We don't need to jump in bed with these people. We can beat everyone else as we are," he paused a moment. "It will just take us a little longer is all."

Sitting silent a moment, May looked between Odin and Miles, her face wracked with thought before she turned back to the former. "I'm trusting you on this one," she whispered back to him, instinctively reaching to her belt and rolling a pokeball around in her hand. "Odin, you're the one managing the finances and most of the logistics. I'm trusting you," she repeated.

Taking a deep breath and giving her a little nod, Odin looked back to his commander, his features cold and serious. "I'm sure," he answered, his voice a little louder. "We'll be operating on a budget tighter than Mudkip's asshole, but in light of your strategy concerning the river basin, we can make it work. I'm sure of it."

May shivered at the mental picture, putting a hand between herself and Odin. "Fine, just never say that again," she turned back to Miles. "Mr. Mercangild," she said, leaning back in her seat, "regrettably we can't accept your offer at this time," May went on. "Believe me, I appreciate the gesture, but the terms of your proposal just don't meet our needs at this time."

His grin turning sharply downwards, Miles looked at the floor a minute, bobbing his head from one side to the other. "Terms can change," he looked back up at May, his tone still predominantly lighthearted though now it bore an edge. "I'd be happy to sit down with you in private and discuss the nature of the loan. Perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement."

"At this time," May went on, "I don't think I'm looking to engage your services. That said, you're of course more than welcome to partake of our hospitality here at the Gym, or if you'd prefer we can put you up in some off-site housing."

Miles bowed yet again. "I have a villa some ways outside of town," he answered, his demeanor recapturing its former levity. "It's a pity we cannot do business today, but we at the Golden Guild shall remain in touch." He righted himself before saluting her slowly and politely. "Until we meet again, milady," the banker turned and strode from the hall, his lushly padded boots making no noise as he left the room.

Drawing in a deep breath and still fidgeting with the pokeball in her hand, May glanced to Odin from the corner of her eye. "Four million auras," she whispered, "walking out the door."

Odin made a face, prompting May to wonder if perhaps he tried to smirk but failed to properly execute the muscular movements necessary to complete the action. "We didn't lose four million," he answered in a whisper to match his commander's. "Rather, we just saved eleven million, plus who knows how much interest."

"Eight hundred and eighty-five thousand, six hundred aurans worth of interest," May answered, her eyes focused on the crowd of plaintiffs still gathered silently at the entrance of the Gym's main chamber. She glanced to her captain, registering the surprise on his face. "Elm, for all his faults," she went on, "wasn't an awful teacher."

Lowering his ledger, Odin turned to face forward again. "I can do the math," he answered. "It's more that I-" he stopped mid-sentence. "No, never mind," the youthful captain returned his ledger to chest level and prepared to write as May waved forward the next plaintiff.

The smell of frankincense and burning charcoal filled the Gym's grand chamber as May's attendants threw oil and resigns on the numerous fires scattered about the room and into the many lamps fastened to the walls. Moreover the smell of smoke, its source a huge but lazily dozing Charmeleon sitting by its trainer not five meters to May's left, wafted all throughout the room and hung about the air like a nearly imperceptible curtain. As one plaintiff after another paraded before her, each seeming to attempt a lower bow than his predecessor in order to more thoroughly supplicate himself to the young lady on the stage, May sank gradually lower and lower into her seat. Sweat beaded on her brow while the young savant met with the community leaders and peasants of Petalburg, though as the afternoon progressed into evening, the woman in the white and gold armor spent less and less time paying any attention whatsoever to the people before her, focusing rather on the windows to the west or the skylights above her, through which the savant looked out upon the ever darkening clouds drenching Petalburg in a never ending deluge.

May snapped to her senses, coming back from a particularly long and blank stare at the windows to her right, as Odin's fingertips lighted on her shoulder and the young captain whispered her name. "What's that?" May stammered, looking up at her second in command and registering the concern in his green eyes. She glanced between Odin and where she expected what remained of the crowd opposite her stage to be. "Oh," she muttered, seeing that no petitioners remained in the hall to plead for her time or protection. "Did I miss anything?"

Standing back upright, Odin took a step to the side. "You got awfully quiet there for a moment," he said beneath his breath. "Fortunately we'd run out of complainers for the day. Ready to call it a night?"

Clapping her hands once to draw everyone's attention, the young savant looked to the Tem Rocket guards standing all around her. "Thank you everyone," she called out, leaning forward in her chair as to disguise the effort required to strengthen her voice. "You've all done a fine job standing around and looking intimidating and or pretty. Go get some rest. We've got a big week coming up. Dismissed."

Remaining by his commander's side as everyone else filed from the hall, Odin waited silently until he could speak without risk of being overheard. "Big week huh?" he echoed.

May climbed to her feet, reaching up with one hand to wipe her forehead. "So, what are the damages?" she nodded to the leather bound book in Odin's hand, ignoring his prompt.

Sighing, the captain flipped open the book and began scanning through the most recent entries. "Well, better than they could have been, worse than I would have thought ideal," he answered, pausing to mentally tabulate as a particularly loud peal of thunder shook the building. "We're pretty much breaking even," Odin said at length. "Restoring Petalburg's infrastructure and buying off its community leaders has been expensive, but the tribute we've collected from the surrounding villages coupled with what we managed to cannibalize from Magma's stores have pretty much absorbed the costs. Now," Odin turned one of the heavy pages. "We do need to talk about the funds you allocated to retrofitting the fleet to carry all these mercenaries you've been hiring."

May raised an eyebrow. "What about them?" she asked.

Waiting a moment as another rumbling peal of thunder drowned him out, Odin closed the ledger and looked his commander in the eye. "Well frankly it's an enormous, a titanic waste of money, ma'am," he said, his timbre some combination of nervous mixed with an attempt to sound casual. "If the plan is to hit the cities to the east using the river valley then there's no reason to outfit the fleet to carry the mercenaries; half our ships are too big to fit down the river and the ones that aren't are the ones you're choosing _not_ to equip with the landing crafts."

Stepping forward and carefully hopping down from the stage, May motioned for Odin to follow, prompting him to step up beside her. "And how is the work on the fleet going, by the way?" she asked, walking around the stage and making her way towards the back of the Gym.

"We're essentially finished," Odin answered, no shortage of irritation thinly veiled in his words. "The project manager tells me that the retrofits should be done by the day after tomorrow. May," he walked just a little ahead of his commander and stopped, prompting the young savant to halt as well. "You still haven't told me _why_ you're retrofitting half the ships in the fleet to carry a bunch of landing craft, when those ships and the crafts they're carrying are literally useless to the invasion we have planned. Nor have you told me why we're keeping the retrofits so quiet."

May remained silent, looking at the wall beside her second in command, so Odin continued on. "May," he said. "I've told you a thousand times that I'm beside you one hundred percent and I meant it every time. I'm happy to serve. If you want me to serve at peak efficiency though, I need to know what's going on. I need to know what you're thinking so I can know how to do what you want done. Whatever you're not telling me could be vital to-"

May stepped forward and pushed herself up on the tips of her toes to kiss Odin's cheek, silencing him instantly. Reaching to his side, the girl took her captain's hand in hers and kissed him once more, taking a breath and speaking then without pulling away so her words broke on his jaw. "And you have no idea how much it means to me, all the work you're doing," May said. "Odin, you're clever and a hard worker and I honestly don't know how I'd have made it this far without all your help. I just," she trailed off a moment. "I need you to trust me. I have a plan. I just can't tell anyone what it is without risking it falling apart. If Magma or Aqua got wind of what I want to do then-"

Odin raised a finger and put it on May's lip. "Say no more, I understand," he said. "I don't really like it but I understand." The young captain cleared his throat. "Tell you what," he went on a moment later. "It's Matthison's wife's birthday and I promised him I'd take his patrol tonight so he could spend some time off with her. After the shift I'll collect all the reports on retrofitting the fleet and compile them with the expense overviews from the mercenary squads so you can review them first thing in the morning. That way you can turn in early, you look wiped out," he smiled at her, though his expression bore obvious marks of concern.

"Thank you," May answered, her bright blue eyes ringed by deep purple bands betraying the true depth of her fatigue. "Listen, Odin," she said, trailing off again before continuing. "I want you to know that I'm not overlooking everything you've done and everything you're doing. I'm pretty terrible at all this but I want you to know," she paused. "I want you to know that once this is all said and done and we have some time to breathe, I'll be able to thank you properly. I'm," the young savant grinned and her eyes fluttered between the captain before her and the floor at her feet, "I'm really quite looking forward to being able to thank you properly," she said, her eyes finally settling on his.

A reflexive smile overtaking his face and mirroring his commander's, Odin gave her hand a squeeze. "All in good time," he said, his face taking on the slightest hint of a sanguine hue. "Now," he bowed, the gesture possessed of a good natured playfulness, "if you'll excuse me, milady."

May bowed in return. "You're excused," she answered, letting go of his hand. "Milord."

Turning on his heel, Odin paced towards the southern end of the Gym, his red and black armor lightly tapping against itself as he walked. May watched him go, the smile on her lips stubbornly clinging to life even as the spark in her blue eyes faded. She turned then, shoulders bent as though beneath a tremendous weight, but stopped instantly as a heavyset character wrapped in green and silver armor seemed to materialize from the shadows before her and step into the center of the hall.

Managing to contain her gasp of shock, May raised a hand and pressed it to her chest as the man before her inclined his head in her direction. "Desmond," the young commander nearly shouted the greeting. "Forgive me, I didn't see you there."

Taking a step to one side as not to box May in, the man in the green plate armor leaned his considerable weight against one wall and folded his hands behind his back as he spoke. "No, the need to beg forgiveness is mine milady," he said, his words slightly slurred by the inability of his deformed mouth to properly form them. He reached up and scratched at the deeply twisted and mottled scar that ran from the bottom of his nose through both his lips. "I was trying not to eavesdrop on you and the captain, but I needed to catch you before you retired."

May's attention, despite her best efforts, flickered to the dozen pokeballs, the half-a-dozen knives, the shortsword, the longsword, and the heavy cudgel the mercenary soldier before her wore on his belt and all over his person. "Of course," she answered, looking back up to his face. "What can I do for you?"

Desmond started to speak, but cut himself off with a rattling cough and took a moment thereafter to clear his throat. "Pardon," he groaned, "my stints in Fallarbor and Mt. Chimney were not kind to my lungs." He stopped once more to accommodate a heaving cough that echoed down the hall. "Anyway," he said, regaining his breath, "about that matter that you asked I look into, the two decapitations?"

May quickly looked over her shoulder and about the hall before, spotting no one around, turning back to the mercenary. "Did you find anything?" she asked.

Reaching beneath his thick breastplate, the gnarled soldier produced a folded sheet of vellum secured with a narrow cord. "I put my best hunters on it. The scene of the murders was of course washed completely clean by the rain, but my boys put out some feelers among the locals and come to find out there were some odd visitors in town the morning your men were killed."

Taking the sheet, May slipped it in her pocket. "Broad stroke it for me," she answered.

"Well it's an interesting case," Desmond responded. "My hunters found a witness to the killings. The kid says he saw about ten men in black cloaks come from the inn down the way, kill your guards, and then disappear with their uniforms. When my boys followed up at the inn we learned that only one of the killers had a room and he'd only been there for a day or so prior."

May swallowed the lump in her throat. "Did you find out where he came from or where he went?"

The mercenary shook his head. "Possibly," he muttered. "The owner said the quarry paid for his stay with a single gold coin but refused to sign the guest register. I did manage however," Desmond grinned and produced from his pocket a glimmering golden disc about the size of his thumbnail, "to get the coin from the owner." He offered it to May who took the coin and immediately held it up to the light. "I didn't recognize the markings but I thought it's certainly a better starting place than-"

"I do," May stated flatly, any emotion in her voice suddenly vanishing as she looked down at the raised runes intertwining across the surface of the coin. She looked to the mercenary beside her, her eyes hard. "I recognize the markings."

Desmond shifted his arms and folded them before his chest. "And?" he probed.

"And," May closed her fist tightly around the gold token before opening it back up again to stare at the coin in her palm, "they're Orrean."

The mercenary's face quickly grew sober. "What exactly does that mean?" he asked.

May thought for a long moment. "It means that I can't trust anyone just because they're wearing a Team Rocket uniform anymore," she said. May went on a moment later, "It also means I'll need you and your men ready for a fight sooner than planned."

Again Desmond nodded to the young commander. "The Sons of Swords are at your beck and call," he answered. "Just point at what you need dead and we'll do the rest."


	9. Wallace - Chapter 3 - Black Arrows

Wallace – Chapter Three – Black Arrows

The cart jerked harshly to one side as its wheel crashed down on a rut in the waterlogged mud-road. The ensuing splash of murky muck leapt over the edge of the wooden cart and washed over the trainers sitting or lying against the guardrail, leaving them groaning in complaint and wiping at the mud clinging to their red and orange uniforms and armor. At the same moment a bolt of blinding white lightning split the dark sky overhead and vanished with a crack of thunder that left a ringing in the ears of most everyone in the plodding caravan below.

Wallace, stirred from his dreaming by the jerking of the cart and the peal of thunder, groaned and resituated himself in his corner of the vehicle. He licked his already chapped lips and tugged at the deeply green cloak he wore over his orange mail, pulling its folds a bit tighter around his frame and drawing its hood lower over his face. The boy watched a moment as a waterfall of collected rain streamed from the kink in the hood a few inches from his face and splashed against the already saturated plank on which he sat. Shifting around then he turned just enough to look out over the edge of the cart.

His eyes, glittering like emeralds in the light of the lamp hanging on a pole at the front of the vehicle, scanned the scene all around him. Wallace reached for the little tin cup between his legs and drained it of its collected rainwater. "Eighteen days," he muttered too quietly for any of the dozen or so other Magmans in the cart around him to hear. "We've been on this f-," cutting short his curse the boy took a breath as a lance of pain shot through his chest and robbed him of his composure. "We've been on the road for eighteen days without seeing hide nor hair of Aqua or Rocket, or decent sleep for that matter. What possible reason could the boss have for sending us to Rustboro?"

The countryside continued rolling by as the young Wallace stared out at the scenery, a landscape composed of an almost indescribably bleak amalgamation of half-flooded flatlands, miniature foothills, and rocky crags choked with fog. Looking forward, past the bench on which sat the driver, Captain McNomik, over the pair of Tauros pulling the cart, and beyond the dozen other vehicles ahead of them, Wallace strained to look into the distance, hoping to catch a glimpse of their destination. His searching however met with no success, he saw barely to the head of the caravan before the dense fog confounded his vision.

Thinking a moment about how he might use the corner of the cart in conjunction with the wooden shield strapped across his back as an improvised umbrella, Wallace decided the work involved wouldn't provide sufficient protection above and beyond the cloak already shielding him from the storm. Nevertheless he did pull the shield from his back and set it over one knee, creating a little lean-to against which the Pokémon sheltering in his lap and under his cloak immediately curled for further reprieve from the precipitation.

Reaching forward, Wallace tapped the bench by the cart's driver to garner the attention of his superior officer. "Captain McNomik," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the rain. "Respectfully sir, any idea how long until we reach Rustboro?" he asked.

Shifting his substantial frame in his seat to look at his subordinate, McNomik looped the reins of the Pokémon drawing the cart over one knee while he spoke. "Supposed to have been six days ago," answered the burly soldier, "but this damn weather keeps slowing us down. Gods must be angry," he grinned and joked.

Wallace turned and looked south, wondering just how far from the sea he sat. "They might just be," he muttered.

The captain turned back around. "Anyway," he cleared his throat. "Assuming the road doesn't wash out beneath us and we don't run into an ambush, we should hit Rustboro tonight or early tomorrow morning. Once we cross the Volga we're basically there and the river should be just ahead. Good thing too, seeing as how Commander Maxie wants all you rookies trained as quickly as possible."

Raising an eyebrow, Wallace glanced about the cart as the majority of his fellow recruits drifted back to sleep before looking back to his captain. "Mind if I inquire as to the urgency?" he asked. "Is command worried about something?"

"Classified," McNomik answered. "Under no circumstances am I to tell any of you that we've got actionable intelligence Team Rocket is preparing for a massive offensive." He turned about again and looked directly at the green eyed trainer behind him, watching with a measured expression as shock manifested on Wallace's face. "Rocket's forces are gearing up to hit Oldale, almost certainly within the week."

Thinking a moment as his captain went silent, Wallace paled at the realization. "That would make perfect sense," he muttered, drawing up a mental map of the continent as best as he could recollect it from the many such charts his father had kept at their estate. "From there they could use the river-basin to strike at Littleroot, Mauville, and Verdanturf, either in rapid succession or even simultaneously if they could navigate their smaller ships down the river."

McNomik grinned. "You are sharp."

"And," Wallace went on, "If Rocket was in the mood they could invade Slateport as well. Even if they failed to take it they could still lay siege to the city, pretty much strangling Aqua's forces in the south. Gods, they could take control of all the southlands in one move."

"And we cannot let that happen," McNomik stated, his tone growing grave. "They've already taken too much."

Wallace looked over his shoulder, staring east for a moment. "Captain," he blurted, voice still subdued, "we're headed the wrong way. We should be going to Oldale, not Rustboro."

This time the burly captain shook his head, throwing from his hood the accumulated rain. "Nope," he said flatly. "Some time ago Maxie ordered most of our troops in Rustboro to redeploy to and reinforce Oldale, said he saw this coming. Hell, half the garrison was redeployed east to absorb Rocket's offensive, so Rustboro is," he paused. "Well, it's not undefended but it's being held by a skeleton crew. You lot will be trained in and subsequently deployed to defend Rustboro while the hardened vets do the heavy lifting, holding the east against Team Rocket and Team Aqua."

Nodding along, Wallace pulled his hands beneath his cloak and under his shield to shelter them from the rain. "Makes sense," he said, largely to himself.

Feeling a sudden presence in his mind, like a second series of thoughts in his brain occurring independently of any direction from his consciousness, the young trainer jumped in surprise. Wallace sucked in a breath, prompting a pang of discomfort from behind his ribs before pulling his cloak aside just enough to get a glimpse of the little Pokémon curled up in his lap. Struggling to consciously establish communication, Wallace attempted to direct his thoughts at the Pokémon. _'What?'_ he managed to think.

Speaking purely in her trainer's mind, his Ralts looked up to Wallace while simultaneously shrinking back beneath his cloak to avoid the rain and draw as much warmth from his lap as possible. _'I'm sorry master,'_ she spoke silently. _'I didn't mean to startle you. Please forgive me.'_

Wallace sighed and affectionately dropped his hand on her head. _'No no, don't apologize,'_ he mentally consoled. _'I'm still just trying to get my head around this psychic-link thing we have going on,' _he grinned. _'I've never been mentally fused with anyone before. Speaking of which, why is it still so difficult for me to actually use this link? It's like trying to thread a needle with a dumbbell,'_ he thought a second, _'using just my brain.'_

The Ralts remained silent a moment, then shrugged one shoulder noncommittally before going on to remain silent for yet another minute. _'That is the proper gesture, yes?'_ she asked, _'Humans shrug their shoulders when they don't know the answer to a question?'_ the Pokémon trained her big red eyes on her trainer as he grunted in affirmation. _'Good, human communication is strange. You'd think it would be easier for a psychic to pick up on its non-verbal facets.'_

Wallace looked up, smiled to himself, and stared without focus into the distance. _'Your vocabulary certainly has grown,_' he thought at length.

'_I have a good teacher,'_ the Pokémon responded.

_'Seriously,'_ Wallace went on, _'you're a fast learner. Vocabulary, mathematics, astronomy, even theology and how to dance- You learn faster than I can teach.'_ He beamed a moment with pride. _'We still need to get you a decent name though. I can't go calling you Ralts once you evolve. It would be like naming a person "teenager" or "human" or-'_ he mentally mumbled a moment. _'Anyway, excellent job on your lessons so far: really stellar work.'_

_'I have a good teacher,' _the Ralts repeated.

Wallace ignored the compliment. _'What's on your mind?'_ he asked, shifting around some to reallocate a greater length of his cloak to wrap around the miniature psychic as she began to shiver against the chill in the air.

'_Captain McNomik is very, very uneasy,' _responded the creature. _'He told the truth about the information on Team Rocket's plan being classified. He has an ulterior motive in telling you about it however.'_

Wallace looked down at his Pokémon disapprovingly. _'I told you reading a mind without permission is rude,' _he stated flatly.

Immediately looking away and down, the Ralts folded her hands over one another. _'I didn't read his mind,'_ she answered. _'Or I didn't at first. Please don't be angry with me,_' she blurted, pulling aside the cloak to look up at him, even though doing so exposed her to the rain. _'I sensed the captain's concern and I only read his mind a tiny bit to make sure you weren't in danger!'_

Opening his mouth to speak, Wallace cut himself off, closing and pressing his lips into a fine line. _'It's alright,' _he thought after a pause. _'Just, well just try to keep the probing to a minimum. It isn't polite.'_

The Ralts nodded quickly. _'Of course,'_ she answered. _'Normally I do, but I sensed his fear and, again I just wanted to make sure you were not in danger. I determined that he was telling you the truth and had a hidden motive in telling you, but I couldn't go any deeper to figure out his motive without alerting him to my presence. It is however, what's the phrase?'_ the Ralts cocked her head to one side, _'eating him alive? He actually wants to bring it up with someone, you specifically I suspect, to get it off his chest.'_

"Hm," Wallace toned, mentally thanking his Pokémon for watching out for him while simultaneously turning back to Captain McNomik. The young trainer took as deep a breath as he could, wincing against the discomfort brought on by the action. "Sir," he said, only loud enough to draw the captain's attention, going on when the officer turned back and acknowledged him with a grunt. Wallace stood up then and re-shouldered his shield, drawing some groans of complaint from the other Magma troopers he disturbed. Scooping up his Ralts he stepped over the driver's bench to sit next to the captain. "If I may ask, what's got you worried sir?" he asked almost too quietly for the man beside him to hear over the rain. "With all respect, it's pretty obvious you have reservations about the situation you want to discuss."

McNomik stared straight ahead for several long seconds before he cleared his throat, gripped the reins tightly, and rested his elbows on his knees. Still he stared straight ahead along the caravan, barely able to see the lead cart for the inclimate weather. "You know why I brought you into the fold kid?" he asked, not even a hint of emotion in his tone.

"Well it certainly isn't for my exemplary constitution or my indomitable physique," Wallace smirked. "Is it because I'm filthy-freaking-rich and Magma is dirt-freaking-poor?"

The captain's expression soured. "That's how I plan on justifying it to the review board when they call me up for recruiting a cripple," he answered, then, if possible, looked to grow even more serious. "But no. Obviously I was there the day things went south at your estate. I saw you run down to your father when tensions were running high with Team Aqua, I saw you hesitate to leave him and fight to get back to him once the fighting started. I watched as you and your Pokémon took those two direct hits from the Hyper Beams, and like any sane person I thought you'd be dead when the smoke cleared."

Wallace chuckled once. "Well in all honesty I probably should have been." He put his hand on his Ralts' shoulder and patted her. _'Thanks very much for that, by the way,'_ he thought at the Pokémon.

The Ralts stirred in his lap. _'Pleasure,'_ she answered.

Continuing on, the burly captain gripped the reins with such strength his leather gloves creaked. "Magma's failing," he said, almost beneath his breath, "and not just financially or militarily. We're failing morally. I remember serving under Commander Apollyon, Maxie's father? Ever heard of him?" the captain asked, going on when Wallace shook his head. "Apollyon was, he was a hell of a man. Under his leadership we expanded our territory threefold, recruited the best in the land and killed the worst. Moreover we had the love of the people, 'Team Magma' was synonymous with 'honor' and 'strength.' During the civil war Apollyon rose to power and carved out most of Hoenn's northern and western territory for us. It wasn't ideal, the country was in ruin from the war what with almost a half a billion people dead and most of the rest left destitute, but for us and our supporters there was at least a measure of safety and stability.

McNomik took a long, pained breath. "Maxie lacks the," he trailed off as if carefully weighing his words, "moral inclinations his father possessed. Team Magma has in the recent past taken actions that were nothing short of," again the officer's voice faded as he looked for the proper expression. "The organization needs people like Apollyon again," he turned and looked at Wallace, "and you remind me of him, more than a little." Half of the soldier's face looked as though he were attempting to twist it into a smile. "That's why I recruited you. Hell," he turned back to the road. "You even look like the old son of a bitch. You could pass for his son."

Wallace looked down at his lap as his Ralts again shifted about to get warm. "Groudon's breath," he muttered, pulling his cloak around his frame to try and keep in more heat. "Has the weather gone insane? How can it be this frigid, humid, foggy, _and_ raining at the same time?"

McNomik smirked. "Mother nature's a steel-clad bitch?" he offered. "Other than that-" McNomik cut himself short with a curse and tugged hard on the reins, turning both of the draft Tauros aside and bringing the cart to a halt on the side of the road as the caravan ahead of him came to a stop and the vehicles behind him turned to do likewise. "Now what the hell is this?" growled the captain as the rest of the recruits in his cart stirred and some even woke up.

Looking ahead, Wallace saw no obstacle in the road, heard no screams of battle, and sensed nothing out of the ordinary. Even though he could only barely see to the edge of the caravan, Wallace strained to find the source for the delay. Aside from the rest of the carts failing to move however he saw nothing wrong and heard nothing over the howl of the wind and the rain. "Captain?" he glanced to McNomik for orders.

Dropping from the bench and splashing down as the muck and the mud rose well above his ankles, the grizzled soldier turned to the recruits in his cart. "Adams!" he barked hard at the trooper who looked most awake, further shaking the girl from her dozing, "the cart's yours. Try not to lose it," he said before turning to Wallace. "Lieutenant Weaver, you're with me. Let's get this mobile shit-heap mobile again."

Nodding and putting his arm under her haunches to support his Ralts, Wallace jumped down from the bench. As the watery mud rushed several inches above his ankles, Wallace breathed a sigh of relief that he had elected to wear the high boots uniform to his father's soldiers and not the sturdy, yet low-cut, shoes Magma issued to its light infantry and new recruits. "Any idea what's going on sir?" he asked.

Shaking his head, McNomik heaved his feet one after the other out of the mud and forward, step by step cutting a path for himself and his trainee through the mud beside the numerous carts ahead of them in the caravan. "Not a goddamned clue," he said. "But we're coming up on the River Volga and I just pray the fucking bridge isn't out." He growled beneath his breath a moment. "That'd add no less than a week to this already so timely journey."

Wallace followed behind the captain, taking every opportunity to retrace his bootprints through the muck. As they walked the burly officer turned about, glancing to Wallace from the corner of his eye. "You're taking this whole transition rather well," he stated flatly. "Not a lot of people in your situation could keep it together so effectively."

Pausing to lean against a cart for leverage with which to extract his foot from the muck, the younger trainer focused his attention on freeing his boot. "There's," he trailed off, face growing somber only as long as it took him to realize his expression had fallen before he refreshed his subdued smile. "There's nothing I can do about it now," he answered. "It won't do to dwell on it."

"Fair enough," McNomik answered, turning forward again as he and Wallace reached the head of the caravan. "Hey! All eyes over here!" The captain bellowed, drawing a number of startled glances from the recruits in the carts and garnering the full attention of their superiors. "What's the situation up here!? Why aren't we moving?"

Another soldier in red and orange mail, stood between the front of the line of vehicles and a narrow stone bridge arcing over what Wallace then saw to be a cavernous ravine cutting through the countryside, appearing from the white wall of mist, splitting the land, and likewise disappearing into the dense fog. The soldier then turned his attention on the newly arrived captain and made his way towards him. As the Magman soldier stopped in front of McNomik Wallace took another few steps forward, beyond the lead vehicle, and looked cautiously down the ravine, his stomach twisting and his head growing light as he took in the sheer distance between himself and the wide river running at the bottom of the drop.

McNomik glared at the soldier before him before looking beyond him at the narrow stone bridge. "Care to explain why we've stopped?" the officer rumbled.

Looking over his shoulder the young soldier, a boy who couldn't have yet reached twenty Wallace thought, gestured to a number of wooden carriages parked directly in the center of the bridge and stretching half the length of the overpass to the opposite edge of the ravine. Tethered to no draft animals, and occupied by no obvious inhabitants, the several carriages sat abandoned. "Path's obstructed," answered the trooper uneasily. "The bridge is too narrow to go around-"

McNomik stepped forward, leaving mere centimeters between himself and his subordinate as he towered over the younger trooper. "So corporal, have you perhaps thought to push the obstruction out of the way?" he growled.

Standing as still as an animal listening for a predator, the corporal swallowed the lump in his throat. "There's too many and they looked to be wedged in tight sir," the soldier pointed to the stuck carriages. "See how the first few are turned sideways and jammed between the guards? Whoever shoved those in there was either doing it on purpose or else completely incompetent."

Closing the distance between himself and the reporting trooper, McNomik remained focused on the man before him. "So smash the obstructions apart and get this party moving. That's an order."

Wallace turned around then, scanning the fuzzy edges of what small volume of the world he could see within the fog, a deep dread settling into the pit of his stomach as he noted the road along which the caravan traveled lay in the narrow pass between the bases of two shallow hills. Looking first to the north and then to the south up the slopes of the hills, the young trooper froze, spotting at the very edge of the wall of fog an almost imperceptibly faint glint of light. Focusing on the spark, his heart leaping into his throat, Wallace watched as a man-shaped figure rose out of the grass, one hand holding a pair of glinting binoculars and the other raised over its head in a balled fist. The observer with the binoculars, his drab green cloak unfurling to reveal shining black and red armor beneath as he did so, opened his fist and cast it downward in a harsh signal.

Sucking in a breath, Wallace drew his shield from his back, dropped to his knees, and raised the sturdy wooden barrier over his head. "Ambush!" he screamed at the top of his voice despite the pain ripping into his lungs, trying to angle the shield to cover both himself and his Ralts.

Wallace's voice echoed once off the rocky crags to the caravan's east before fading sufficiently as to be drowned out by the rain. All eyes within fifty meters trained on the young soldier in the green cloak as an awkward silence enveloped the caravan. Some faces immediately began scanning the surround while others remained staring in stunned silence at Wallace, until someone on the southern flank of the line of carts screamed.

A sound like a great wind rose over the rain. Bunkered beneath his shield, Wallace watched as countless black projectiles tipped with gleaming silver points rained out of the sky, passing through both troopers and Pokémon in their descent like hail through rice paper, pinning men to the carts where they sat, knocking drivers from their seats and filling the air with dozens of agonized screams and hundreds of loud claps as broadhead arrows shot from the sky and bit deeply into whatever they struck.

Twice Wallace felt a great impact bludgeon painfully into his left arm as little silver points burst through but remained stuck in his side of his shield. A third such impact shook the boy's frame and spattered his face with blood as an arrowhead burst through his shield and tore through his forearm, remaining stuck through wood and flesh and pinning them together. Another of the blocked arrows ceased its descent only after its bladed fin had sliced into the bridge of Wallace's nose, its murderous arrowhead head arrested a single millimeter from the boy's left eye. Yet another of the deadly bolts slapped into the mud beside Wallace's leg, the edge of its wickedly sharp fin cutting through the tough leather of his boot without so much as slowing, opening a long red line down the length of the flank of his foot to the elements. Blood spat from the green-eyed trooper's lacerations and mixed with the runny mud all around to form a rust colored slurry as the screaming of falling arrows faded as quickly as it had first risen, replaced by the wailing and moaning of dozens of wounded soldiers.

His arm, his foot, and his face burning, Wallace knelt in the immobilizing mud, frozen for a split second, his vision reflexively trying to focus on the point of the arrow that had nearly bolted his shield to his face. Breaths coming in rapid and shallow bursts, Wallace tried to scream in both terror and agony as he registered the arrow in his forearm in much the same way one might register molten lead poured into a wound. The scream died in his throat however as he looked out from beneath his shield and over the carnage the single volley had wrought. No fewer than ten corpses lay within his field of view, slain instantly by shafts through their heads or their hearts, or, in one unfortunate victim's case, through both. Meanwhile the screams and desperate sobbing of at least two dozen wounded men and women rose to the sky.

Dropping from beneath his cloak, the Ralts looked up to her trainer, horror flashing through her big red eyes. _'Master!'_ her voice burst into Wallace's mind. _'Master! We have to get you out of here now-'_

Her voice faded as from the mist all around the roars of beasts and howling war cries rose with such volume the din drowned out the storm overhead. Wallace felt his heart drop from his throat into the pit of his stomach with such force he nearly fell to all fours. From somewhere in the mist he heard familiar voices shouting for the recruits to form up and take positions, but each such order failed to break through the screams of the wounded, the whooping bellowings advancing on the caravan from seemingly all directions. Wallace refused to even guess which was worse, the blood-freezing roars, howls, and shrieks of hungry Pokémon shredding through the mist, or the inhuman warcries of the closing humans.

Chaos descended on the caravan.

Wallace heaved himself to his feet, drawing from his belt a long knife as he raised his shield as best he could. The hand of his good arm tightening around the dagger, the young trainer could only watch as the shapes of dozens of men and at least as many beasts materialized in the fog. "Alright little one," Wallace muttered as his Pokémon stepped up beside him and his mouth went dry. From beyond the wall of white the boy heard yet more screams rising from the caravan, each one louder than the last and blending together in Wallace's mind into a maelstrom of dizzying terror. "We've both dodged death a few times too many and it looks like she's come calling for us. Any ideas?"

The Ralts' sanguine eyes flitted this way and that, beginning to glow dimly red. _'I'll protect you,'_ her words, uttered with an icy edge of total serenity reached him, _'no matter what.'_ The falling rain grew heavier and seemingly colder as she spoke, further reducing Wallace's line of sight. Puddles began forming atop the mud as the ground reached its saturation point, and the young trainer found his feet sinking yet deeper, almost to the knee, in the increasingly unstable mud.

Wallace steeled himself as numerous figures, some human, most monstrous, charged out of the mist and crashed into all three of the caravan's exposed flanks like a tide rolling over sand. The boy rooted his feet where he stood and braced for a fight, unsure whether he should charge into the fray or attempt to flee over the bridge or simply leap from the cliff behind him and hope for the best. As his mind strained over the question, Wallace watched, frozen, as from the mist a score of Pokémon, Raticates, Machokes, Arboks, Nidorinos, Mankies, Geodudes, and even a massive Charmeleon charged into the caravan's disorganized defenders from three sides. The beasts, followed closely by half as many trainers armed with crossbows or pikes and heavy shields, set to shredding every living person in their path, reducing recruits and Magman soldiers alike to bloody cadavers almost without a fight.

As the screams of the wounded rose even higher and several flashes of dazzling white light betrayed the Magman trainers attempting to recover from the ambush and bring their own Pokémon into the melee, even more Rocket soldiers fitted in gleaming black and red armor filed out of the mist, marching in lockstep and each flanked by yet more Pokémon of all breeds. The new arrivals, no less than fifty in number and standing on the slope of the hill to the north raised their heavy crossbows and trained the weapons on the survivors below.

Managing to position himself a little higher atop the mud and dropping to one knee, raising his shield between the Rocket troops as an indistinct order went up from the rank of enemy soldiers, Wallace bit down hard and braced for the impact. As a volley of the deadly black arrows shot from the Rocket troopers yet more screams rose from the crumbled Magman lines. One scream tore from Wallace's mouth as a broadhead shot by his leg, its fin slicing through his calf and instantly bathing his lower leg in hot blood.

Looking down at his newest wound and then back up as the screaming warcries neared him, Wallace spotted a young soldier with burning green eyes and hair the color of sand on a beach, flanked by a Houndoom and a Sneasel, raced directly at him, bellowing a challenge and raising a heavy flanged mace over his head to strike. Angling his shield at the charging warrior, Wallace took a few steps forward and pulled raised his dagger. _'Now!'_ he mentally shouted at his Pokémon. _'Hit them with Confusion!'_

The Ralts jerked forward, swiping her hands through the air as her eyes flashed with crimson light. A nova of white light exploded in front of the three adversaries, catching the sandy-haired human and the Houndoom in its radius and stopping them in their tracks. As the human and the canine skidded to a stop, leaving little trenches in the mud as they did and pawed at their eyes in shock and pain, the Sneasel raced forward with such speed Wallace lost sight of its blurred silhouette.

It's feline muscles heaving, the Sneasel leapt through the air towards Wallace, crashing against his perforated shield as the boy barely managed to raise it in time to keep the Pokémon off him. Gripping the shield with its hind legs the dark Pokémon lashed over the top of the wooden bulwark, striking at Wallace with its clawed hands and tearing angry red slashes down the length of his face. Screaming in pain and barely able to keep his eyes open for all the blood streaming into them, Wallace drew his shield and thus the attacking Pokémon closer and struck with his dagger. Angling the long knife around his shield, the soldier drove the blade into the Sneasel's flank, missing any ribs and burying the implement up to the hilt in the little Pokémon's core.

As Wallace twisted the blade, ripped it from the Pokémon's body, and struck again, this time tearing open another wound just beneath the first, the boy's Ralts stepped between her trainer and the recovering attackers. Even as the battle drew in around them and what little remained of the caravan's defenses disintegrated, her eyes again flashing with crimson energy the Ralts swept her hands through the air in several constricting circles and another burst of blinding light exploded directly between and in front of the green-eyed youth and his Houndoom. Still dazed the trainer dropped his mace and threw his shield to the ground, screaming and shoving his hands up in front of his face as a splash of blood sprayed from his nose and crimson drops dripped from the interior corners of his eyes, running down the sides of his nose and mixing with the blood clinging to his nose and jaw.

The Houndoom however managed to shake off the psychic attack and charged forward with a rumbling snarl. Its jaws opened wide, the Houndoom's mouth lit up with fire and it heaved forward, expelling a blast of searing gas and bile from between its teeth at the Ralts. Meanwhile the miniature psychic, her eyes fixed on the canine attacking her and hard as steel, spun to one side, tracing her arms through yet another pattern in the air as a sheet of yellow light sprung to life at an angle before her and deflected the deadly flames to one side. In retaliation the Ralts stepped back, balled her hand into a fist, and uppercut the air before her. Simultaneously a flash of red mist exploded beneath the Houndoom's jaw, snapping its head back and leaving the canine reeling off balance.

His left eye blind from the blood pouring over it, Wallace screamed and jumped forward, angling his shield at the ground and subsequently pinning the Sneasel's legs between the sturdy wooden planks and the mud. The Pokémon hissed in fury as the soft ground raced up around its frame and Wallace bore down on it with the knife. Flipping the blade point down, Wallace screamed and stabbed down at the feline Pokémon, burying the knife in the Sneasel's soft stomach and rending the steel blade free again. A spray of the creature's purple blood splashed over Wallace's face and stained and matted the Sneasel's black fur while Wallace struck again and again. The blade flashing through the air no less than five times over the next second or two, Wallace ripped opened the Sneasel's chest and neck, spilling its ropey innards over the ground.

Still however the frenzied Sneasel fought back, striking with its claws at Wallace's face, neck, and shoulders. The boy's mail turned away the worst of the blows, but the claws still tore into his face and left ribbons of flesh hanging from his cheekbones. Screaming with effort, Wallace shoved down on the shield with all his strength, eliciting a shriek from the Sneasel as its legs bowed backwards and one snapped. Without letting off the shield the young trainer slashed down once more with the knife, the tip of the weapon plunging into the feline Pokémon's eye and sinking into its skull to the hilt. The Sneasel went silent in mid hiss, its claws falling away from Wallace's face and plopping limply in the mud as the boy twisted the blade with all his strength.

Sucking in a breath, Wallace looked up just in time to see the sandy-haired trainer look up to spot him finish off the Sneasel. Picking up his shield and his mace, the Rocket trooper charged at Wallace who again managed to raise his shield just in time. The enemy soldier smashed his shield into Wallace's and roared with effort as he shoved forward and upwards, lifting Wallace off the ground like a meal on a platter and throwing him backwards. Wallace collapsed on his back almost ten feet away, the landing knocking the breath from his chest and leaving his vision spinning.

Wallace's Ralts, spun on her heel, watching as the sandy-haired youth stalked forward with his mace raised over his head, ready to bear down on Wallace. The psychic Pokémon turned to run to her trainer, but a searing pain in her leg as the Houndoom snapped its jaws around her ankle immobilized her.

Raising his shield before his face, Wallace braced the bulwark with his good hand just as his assailant struck. Gripping his mace with both hands the enemy soldier heaved down with the mace, slamming it against Wallace's shield and leaving a splintered wreck of two of the boards in the shield's center. Again the standing warrior struck at the prone one, roaring with each blow, battering the shield apart over the course of a mere two additional strikes. When the shield was finished, reduced to splinters barely held together by twisted and broken iron bands, Wallace threw it aside, though the action jerked on the arrow still imbedded in his arm and made his vision flash and fade with pain.

Just as the sandy-haired soldier prepared for the killing blow, Wallace rolled and kicked with all his strength, slamming his foot into his attacker's knee. The assailant screamed in pain as his leg twisted to an unnatural degree, dropping to one knee over his target. Not finished yet, Wallace stabbed with his knife. The blade struck perhaps a millimeter into its target's breastplate before the fury of the attack bent the steel knife and snapped it like a twig. The force of the blow however turned the attacker to the side and threw him off Wallace.

Gasping for air, Wallace sat up and threw himself forward, casting aside his broken knife and wrapping his hands with all his remaining strength around his attacker's neck. Screaming with effort as his muscles quaked and threatened to give out, Wallace throttled the trainer beneath him, leaning all his weight into this last struggle and pressing down with such intensity the Rocket trooper on the ground found his head actually sinking so far into the mud that the brown slurry threatened to rise over his face and drown him.

The Houndoom's teeth still tearing into her leg, Wallace's Ralts twisted around and grabbed the attacking Pokémon's skull, positioning her hands on either side of its head. Her eyes once more flashing red, this time so brightly the Houndoom winced, a red mist exploded out from the Ralts' hands, rocketing her arms backwards and throwing the canine back so forcefully it tore a trench in the mud where it landed. As the Houndoom lay smoking and twitching but otherwise immobile, the Ralts glanced at her profusely bleeding leg for only a moment before turning back to Wallace and his fight.

'_Master' _she cried out and reached for him just as the last remaining vestiges of Team Magma's defenders fell beneath Team Rocket's onslaught. The Ralts moved to run for her trainer, but a sudden shifting beneath her feet stopped her cold. The little Pokémon, stable and not so much as attempting to walk, still found herself slowly moving towards the ravine. As she watched, the Ralts noticed that Wallace and his attacker, several corpses and more than a few wounded Magmans were likewise shifting at similar speeds to the towards the ravine.

Utterly saturated by the rain and no longer able to remain stable, all the ground within tens of meters of the ravine began to slide over the edge of the cliff.

Wallace heard his Pokémon's call and looked up, spotting her just in time to realize that he was moving, rapidly, under a power not his own. His attention instantly off the man beneath him, Wallace reflexively released his grip, allowing the Rocket trainer to tear his head from the mud and gasp for air.

The young trainer looked to the edge of the cliff racing towards him. "Oh for shit's sake," he yelled, his face breaking while he and all those around him picked up speed as the mudslide accelerated. Clawing at the mud and trying to half-run, half-swim up the mudslide, Wallace found himself speeding towards the edge of the cliff and, before he could even register flying over the precipice, the sensation of weightlessness took him. Suddenly ejected from the mudslide and thrown into the empty air between the two sides of the ravine, Wallace could only watch in utter helplessness as lifeless bodies, wooden carts packed with goods, panicked Tauros with legs flailing for footing, and a titanic wave of mud shot over the cliff above him.

An order to stay back reached Wallace's ears as all the ground around the ravine suddenly liquefied into a river and gravity did the rest. Spinning through the air, Wallace saw the river beneath racing up to greet him and, as he continued to tumble, caught a glimpse of the bridge overhead shifting as though one side rested on a platform atop flowing water. The narrow stone structure twisted with a crack and seemed to almost explode apart as it fell over the edge and crumbled into raining boulders and debris.

Wallace tried again to scream, but a bone-shaking impact against his back stunned the trainer beyond vocalizing and so knocked his head around that his whole world went fuzzy. As the water splashed up around and washed over him, he reflexively gasped for air, but even that simple action proved impossible as a wave of strangling mud and debris fell on him like an avalanche, driving him beneath the suddenly choked waters and blacking out his world.

Feeling himself accelerate downwards through the black water until he hit the solid riverbed, Wallace managed to land on his feet, though the falling avalanche, its crushing weight mitigated seemingly only slightly by the water, still bore down on him, burying the boy to his waist in mud and threatening to immobilize him until he drowned. His muscles spasming and working only part of the time from lack of air and deathly fatigue, his lungs burning and begging for breath, Wallace heaved with all his remaining strength at the mud piling up around him, managing to extricate himself from the watery prison and kick towards the surface.

Opening his eyes Wallace saw a dim light just overhead and with a final pull and kick broke through the surface of the frigid, swollen river, and gasped for air. He managed to take a breath before the weight of his mail and the fading of his adrenaline-induced strength threatened to pull him back under. The water rising back to his nose, Wallace fought to remain afloat, but another scream from overhead drew his attention and he strained to look up. _'Help!'_ he mentally screamed out for his Ralts as he watched another huge volume of the cliffside sloughed off from the edge of the ravine. Taking with it the enormous stone foundation of the collapsed bridge, the second wave of the mudslide fell at Wallace.

The young trainer ceased his attempts to float, and raised his arms over his head to shield himself from the avalanche just as wave after wave of mud and stone smashed down all around and on top of him, again throwing the trainer beneath the frigid water and blotting out his world. Thrown about like a leaf in a hurricane, Wallace felt himself battered against some unseen obstacle as impact after impact in the water around him sent him reeling through the darkness, carried on waves until finally a tremendous slap of water sent the boy tumbling up onto the stony beach where he collapsed and rolled to a stop on his back.

Opening his eyes and looking up at the grey sky as rain and flecks of mud poured from on high, Wallace managed to roll his head up just enough to look upstream. Numb with shock, the young trainer watched as yet more of the side of the cliff liquefied and collapsed, falling into the river. Shock evolved into fear and disbelief as the river rose up in a tremendous wave of displaced water and rushed at Wallace like a titanic wall of froth and foam.

Taking a final breath before what he guessed would be the end, Wallace dug his fingers into the sand and tried to brace himself. Fatigue and a broken body trumped his determination however, and Wallace failed to hold himself stable as the wave of water rushed over him, lifting him, throwing him downstream and a breakneck speed, before slamming him with dizzying pain into some obstacle. The boy opened his eyes and saw he'd struck a tree growing on the side of the river. Straining with all his remaining strength, Wallace gripped the branch on which he'd snagged and tried to hold on against the current.

Even the tree, rooted down as it was, succumbed to the might of the current. Twisting sideways, creaking and popping and cracking in protest, the tree released its hold on the ground beneath it and slammed sideways beneath the wave, crashing on top of and pinning Wallace against the beach as the water continued rushing over him, invading his mouth and nose and saving no effort to drown him. As the seconds dragged on Wallace felt his head growing light and his entire body falling numb. The young trainer fought to hold his breath and cling to life, but his lungs grew hotter by the second and the searing pain in his chest began to spread outwards and upwards, threatening to force his attempt to breathe if he would not do so willingly.

Suddenly it ended. The rushing water slowed and rolled away, draining into the normal bounds of the river and leaving Wallace's face exposed before receding sufficiently to leave him lying on the bank several meters away from the edge of the river. Stunned almost beyond breathing, Wallace lay staring up at the dark clouds for several minutes as the rain continued to fall. Slowly the boy began to remember the recent beating to which he had been subjected and decided he should inspect his wounds.

Straining to even lift his head, Wallace winced in pain as heavy raindrops fell on his face, burning the wounds and mingling with his own oozing blood only to roll off the strips of flesh still clinging to the muscles beneath. Looking down at himself the young trainer noted the heavy tree laying across his waist and his legs, rendering him completely immobile before he looked to his arm and saw the arrow which had previously pinned his shield to his flesh now served to, somewhat effectively, stop up the wound. He strained for a look at his foot or his calf, but the tree currently crushing him made sure to obstruct his line of sight. Trying to get a feel for the wounds however, Wallace managed to guess that the partial numbness mixed with the burning in his extremities he felt below the waist meant that, if nothing else, the tree was cutting off blood flow to those particular wounds.

Still dazed the young trainer heard a familiar voice in his mind. _'Master!' _it called out. _'Master! Can you hear me?'_

Wallace lay back down and breathed a sigh of relief. _'I'm here at the bottom of the ravine,_' he managed to mentally croak. _'Downstream a fair bit. I'm stuck though. Think you can rescue me?'_

'_I can sense where you're at and should be there as quickly as possible,'_ the psychic answered. _'I might be ten or fifteen minutes.'_

As a wave of lightheadedness took him, Wallace rolled his head to one side and tried to focus his blurring vision on his left arm. The trainer could only watch as the arrow in his arm, already loosened by the tsunami he endured, had come much more loose and the wound now leaked blood at a frightening rate. _'I uh-'_ he called out to his Pokémon, _'I might not have ten minutes,'_ he said. _'Sooner might be better than later.'_

'_Just hold on!'_ the psychic cried out, her tone quite obviously on the brink of panic. _'Master, just hang in there! I'm on my way now!'_

Closing his eyes and trying to steady his breathing, Wallace relaxed against the sand. _'I think I'm alright,'_ he answered, his senses beginning to fail him as the world grew darker and his skin grew cold and numb. _'Really. I'm not in a lot of pain. This doesn't seem like too bad of a way to go.'_

"Yeah," Wallace sighed. "There are worse ways to die."

"Hello?" an unfamiliar voiced rose above the rushing of the river and the falling of the rain. "Is somebody there? Can you help me?"

Focusing on the voice to clear his head of the encroaching numbness, Wallace forced himself to sit up as far as he could, resting some of his weight on his good arm as he twisted about in search of the voice. "Who-" he began to call out but stopped short, spotting no more than ten feet away the Team Rocket trainer with the sand colored hair and sharp green eyes. "It's you," he muttered in disbelief.

His arm pinned to the ground beneath a great stone beam, a fraction of what remained of the ravine's recently collapsed bridge, Wallace assumed, lay the trainer against whom he had struggled only minutes before. The youth in the gleaming black and red armor twisted at the shoulder to get a better look at his neighbor. "Oh, it's you," he muttered, looking Wallace over once. "You- do not look so good."

Wallace laughed a hollow laugh, though he sensed no sarcasm or glee in his opponent's tone. "Really?" called the boy in the orange mail. "Well, I guess some asshole trainers **_did_ **decide to sick their asshole Pokémon on me while shooting about a billion asshole arrows at me before I fell off a cliff and nearly drowned in the asshole river. So yeah, I've been better." Wallace tried to go on, but a burst of pain in his leg cut him off as the tree resting on him shifted and threatened to crush him.

"Well," called the Rocket trainer, "for what it's worth I'd help if I could, but it looks like I'm gonna have to chew off my own arm to get out of here. Don't think I'll have much left in me after that."

Wallace screwed his eyes shut and chuckled, his face straining in pain as the tree sank even lower. "Help? Really?" answered the trainer in the green cloak. "If you're just going to mock me then shut the hell up so I can die in peace here."

"Fine," answered the enemy trainer. "I wasn't mocking you though."

Wallace glanced to the other soldier from the corner of his eye. "No?" he asked.

"No," answered the trainer in red and black. "The battle's over. We're both unarmed and neither of us are even remotely capable of threatening the other, I assume, so why bother?"

Laying back in the sand, Wallace thought a moment. "Tell you what," he responded after the pause. "I've got a rescue party en route and they'll be here in a matter of minutes. Now I might be dead by then but if you lay quiet and don't move they'll probably let you live."

"How do you know anyone's coming?" asked the other soldier, looking across the sand to the boy in orange.

Wallace tapped the side of his head. "Psychic," he answered. "You saw my Pokemon."

"Ah, make's sense," came the response. "No wonder you're so damn hard to kill. Hey," he called out, "how about this? I really want to keep my arm and you, I imagine, don't want to bleed to death-"

"And people freezing in hell want hot chocolate," Wallace answered, then paused again. "So, what's your proposal?"

"A trade," responded the Rocket trooper. "I just happen to have a medical kit with antibiotics and, more importantly, lots of bandages in watertight plastic wraps, and I need out from under this big rock. You on the other hand have a good arm and an inbound rescue party but you're in desperate need of not bleeding to death. I'll trade you the kit so you can patch yourself up for your promise that you'll have your rescue party get this boulder off my arm. After that we both go our own ways and if anyone asks we never saw each other. Deal?" he reached to a bag fastened to his back and, as Wallace watched, drew from it a bright red plastic box marked with a white needle crossed by a partially unraveled roll of bandages.

Wallace leaned up on his arm again and twisted to get a look at the case and its owner. "Deal," he called out.

The heavily armored trainer pressed the box between his cheek and his palm and hurled it like a shotput in Wallace's direction. The kit smacked down in the wet sand not a foot to Wallace's right and the trainer in the green cloak instantly went for it with his good hand, popping the seals and dumping the contents out on the sand beside him.

As he set about tearing open a pack of gauze with his teeth, Wallace glanced to his immobile neighbor. Clenching his teeth, the boy gripped the arrow still sticking from his arm and pressed on it a moment, his whole body screaming in protest as he worked the weapon back and forth, pushing it a few inches farther through his wound before repositioning his hand to grasp the shaft just above the end of the broadhead. Screwing his eyes as tightly shut as possible, Wallace ripped the arrow from his arm, spattering blood across the sand beneath him and hurling the shaft into the river. "So," he called out a moment later, hesitating and wincing in pain as he uncorked a little bottle of pure alcohol and poured it into the hole in his left arm. The ensuing pain making his whole world spin even faster, "you got a name?"

"Call me Odin," answered the sandy-haired trainer. "I captain the Seaspear. You?"

Wallace remained focused on his arm, shoving as much gauze as he could fit into the hole before beginning to wrap it up with bandages and finally taping the wound as best he could with one hand. "Wallace," he finished bandaging his arm and began pouring the remaining alcohol over his face to clean the numerous slashes carved in some instances as deep as his cheekbones. Hissing in pain he set the nearly empty bottle aside and began pressing gauze to the wounds, dabbing up the oozing blood. "Thanks for the assist."

"A deal's a deal," Odin answered. "You'll keep up your end?"

Wallace nodded. "Yes, yes," he answered, wincing a little each time he touched the gauze to his face, but stopping when he felt a familiar voice calling to his mind. _'Any guess when you'll get here?'_ he asked, sensing his Pokémon's presence nearing.

The answer came at the same moment Wallace heard soft but hurried footsteps in the sand. _'I'm right here master,'_ the Pokémon called out, rushing around the fallen tree and striding into Wallace's field of view. _'Try not to be alarmed…'_

Spotting the Pokémon stepping up next to him, Wallace jerked away and shouted in surprise, not recognizing the creature nearing him. "Who the hell-" he blurted out, stopping short as he met the Pokémon's deeply crimson eyes, recognition dawning on his face. "What happened to you?" he asked, looking over his newly shaped partner.

Pausing in front of Wallace, the green and white Pokémon resembled his Ralts in color only. She stood just under a meter high, almost twice as tall as her previous form, with green hair hanging to her shoulders on either side of her face and spiked down in front of her nose. _'Save your strength,' _the Pokémon's voice echoed inside his mind, _'and hold still please.'_

Wallace watched with no small measure of shock plain on his face as the Kirlia in front of his pressed her slender hands together and her big red eyes began glowing with a misty light, an identical red and insubstantial vapor appearing around the fallen tree. Groaning and popping in complaint as the psychic force slowly lifted it skywards, the downed tree shifted up and off of Wallace before dropping unceremoniously into the sand several meters away.

The Kirlia breathed a sigh and visibly relaxed, kneeling down to Wallace and putting a hand behind his back to help him sit up. _'Hold still just a moment longer please,' _she said gently, her eyes, locked on his, beginning to glow again.

Wallace glanced down at his legs as the bandages, gauze, and alcohol, each enveloped in soft sanguine light, lifted off the ground and began cleaning and bandaging his wounds, seemingly of their own accord. As the alcohol poured out and over the slashes in his calf and foot, Wallace winced and looked up to the Pokémon supporting his weight and cleaning his wounds.

'_Master,'_ she said a moment later, pain in her voice as she finished bandaging his legs. She reached up as though to put a finger on his face but thought better of it and stopped, psychically dabbing at his bloodied cheek with some of the spare gauze before setting about wrapping his head in bandages as gently as she could. _'I am so, so, so sorry I wasn't able to protect you. I'll never forgive myself. It won't ever happen again.' _Wreathed in red light, a syringe labelled 'Morphine' floated up and out of the medical kit before poking into Wallace's forearm and injecting him with a dose of the painkiller.

A few seconds later Wallace smiled, his whole body flooded with a buzzing warmth that drove off the pain and left him grinning both happily and dumbly just before the bandages rolled over his mouth. "Could have lead with the morphine. But seriously, you did everything you could," he said quietly, spotting the moisture beginning to accumulate in her eyes as the morphine began depressing his breathing. "And I'm alive because of you so don't you dare beat yourself up. I owe you, well my life. Speaking of, you that is," he went on, lightheaded, "I see you evolved?"

The Kirlia looked down at herself and back up at him. _'I suppose so,'_ answered the psychic. _'After you fell several more soldiers and their Pokémon attacked me and I barely fought my way through. I'd just gotten away from the Team Rocket soldiers and was getting ready to climb to you, but I collapsed and passed out for a few minutes. When I woke up I looked like this.'_

From beneath his bandages, Wallace grinned. _'It's a good look for you,' _he answered through their link. _'Mind helping me up?'_

Sliding her hand under her trainer's back again, the Pokemon helped him roll to one side and up to his feet, sliding her shoulder under his hand and augmenting the support she provided with a boost from the red cloud of psychic mist under Wallace's other shoulder. Spotting Odin, trapped though he was beneath the crumbled debris a few meters away, the Kirlia froze in place, meeting the enemy trainer's gaze as her eyes narrowed and sharpened. _'You,'_ her voice rang in Wallace's mind.

Odin and Wallace both twitched, eyes widening with unease. The latter however remained steady enough to refrain from shrinking away, despite the frigid timbre of the words the Pokemon stabbed into his mind. _'__Part of me hoped you'd survive,'_ the psychic glared at the trainer on the ground, her frame rigid save the occasional spasm of hatred. _'Every scratch on my master is a signature on your death-warrant!' _Her eyes began to glow. '_When I finish there won't be enough of you to bury but first I'll flay you living with my mind and scatter your still-conscious remains from here to Johto!'_

Odin sucked in a breath. "Wallace," he called out, refusing to take his eyes off the Kirlia, as the glow behind her eyes grew brighter. "We had a deal and this wasn't part of it!"

Laying his hand on his Pokemon's shoulder, Wallace gave her a gentle squeeze. "We did actually have a deal," he said, drawing the Pokemon's attention. "I get his medkit and we help him free."

Her mouth dropped open some as the Kirlia looked up to her trainer. _'You're joking,'_ her words faded from enraged to confused. _'After what he did to you? No.'_ She shook her head.

Wallace cleared his throat. "He did save my life. I owe him."

_'That's the morphine talking,_'spat the psychic.

A single laugh escaping him, Wallace leaned a little more of his weight on the Pokemon when his head grew lighter. "Might be," he answered. "Still, we had a deal. The bandages in exchange for his freedom. He kept up his end, the fight's over. You're here and he's unarmed. What's he going to do?"

_'Come back later and kill you in your sleep!'_ the Pokemon answered instantly. _'It's what I'd do- duly expect any competent person to do,' _she stammered.

Wallace sighed in exasperation. "I gave him my word," he said at last. "Or at least word-giving was heavily implied."

Looking up at her trainer, then shifting only her eyes to glare at the silent Odin, the Kirlia let slip a long, quiet sigh. _'I want it on record that this is a truly awful, stupid, insane idea and we should kill him now.' _She looked back to Odin again. _'But if this is your wish then alright.'_

Odin sighed and dropped his forehead into the sand. "Thank the gods," he whispered.

Her eyes again glowing red, this time with an intensity that Wallace had never seen in them before, the Pokemon focused her attention on the massive weight of stone debris pinning Odin's arm to the ground. A dense red mist, glowing as with an internal light enveloped the huge piece of stonework. Slowly the air filled with the rumbling and popping of rock attempting to rend itself apart under its own weight, but just as slowly the great piece of the bridge rose just a few inches off the ground. Odin tore his arm from beneath the weight and rolled away as the red mist faded. Suddenly free to fall the already fatally weakened piece of stonework crashed back to the ground and shattered into half a dozen large boulders, missing re-pinning Odin's arm by mere inches.

_'Aw,'_ the psychic broadcast her thoughts to both of the present trainers. _'He was too quick.'_

Sighing and taking one deep breath after another, Odin pushed himself to his feet. He and Wallace stared at each other for several long seconds before the latter spoke out. "There," Wallace called. "We're both free. Let's call it a day. I'll head upstream. You go downstream towards the bay and you're little ships. Deal?"

Odin scoffed once but refused to answer, looking on at Wallace with an unasked question obviously burning in his eyes.

"It's a perfect plan of attack," Wallace answered that question. "Clamor in the east, strike in the west. You think you've got us fooled into thinking you'll hit Oldale, but really your ships are in the bay two days from Rustboro, right?"

Looking to the ground even though his face remained hard, Odin straightened up. His face softened notably. "Do your superiors suspect?"

Wallace began to laugh but stopped immediately when a ripping pain stabbed into his chest. "I'm just a lieutenant, not even really, I'm a new recruit and I know what you're up to," Wallace answered a moment later. "My captain told me outright he knew Team Rocket had a massive offensive planned and we've been secretly deploying our troops to get ready for you for weeks."

Another sigh escaped Odin. "Fine," he answered. "Why tell me?" his eyes narrowed.

"You saved my life," Wallace answered holding eye contact with his adversary.

"Fine," Odin repeated, holding his recently freed arm up before his face. He took a minute to inspect the cracked and warped, but still functional, gauntlet before looking back to Wallace. He walked forward, prompting a readied twitch as the Kirlia repositioned to keep herself between the trainers. "For what it's worth," the captain in the red and black armor stopped a few paces after he'd walked by Wallace without turning back. "I really hate fighting. I don't enjoy hurting people or thinking about hurting people. Strategy, siege, killing... war is not my thing," he paused a moment longer. "But I'm actually very, very good at it. And my commander is better than I could ever be. Something to consider." The Rocket trainer resumed his march downstream, his heavy boots leaving trenches which almost immediately filled with rainwater as he shuffled through the sand.

Wallace, his hair streaked down his face by the pouring rain, motioned forward and he and his Pokemon set off, walking opposite the river's flow in silence for several minutes, until Odin had moved well out of earshot. Then, tone urgent, Wallace turned to the psychic. "We need to hurry," he said.

The Kirlia shook her head. _'We shouldn't push, straining might literally kill you.'_

"Too bad," Wallace answered, "because we have less than two days to get to Rustboro and evacuate absolutely everyone we can."


	10. Wallace - Chapter 4 - Old Wounds

AN: Welcome back everyone and let me just say thanks for reading this far! I don't really have anything too noteworthy to report, except my sincerest thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave me some feedback, whether that's in the form of a review or a PM. I am all too aware that everyone is busy with their own lives, but feedback on what's working for you all as readers, what isn't working, what can be done differently, and what you would all like to see not only plays a role in the writing process, but is also pleasant to see. Seriously, you guys rock.  
>Also, just another item of thanks to everyone who takes time out of their day to keep the tvtropes page updated. I have a policy of not sullying it and as such all the credit for everything there, and it is a good looking page, goes to my awesome readers. Again, thank you all very much, y'all are awesome!<p>

I had a thought for everyone reading this far though. I have over two hundred thousand words worth of what I'd call 'supplementary' materiel (an arc on Professor Oak's history, short stories on Dawn prior to meeting Ash, chapters written from Elm's, Giovanni's, Sabrina's, and Officer Jenny's perspectives, etc.: items that take place in this universe, but don't really fit into any of the four major arcs I'm writing and aren't long enough to merit their own independent stories) that I've been thinking of gathering up and posting. Were I to organize these lesser tales into a coherent collection of one-shots and short stories would anyone be interested in reading it?

* * *

><p>Wallace – Chapter Four – Old Wounds<p>

Hands trembling with fatigue and spasms of pain, Wallace reached up and carefully trailed his fingers over the bandages wrapped around his face, sending searing bolts of discomfort stabbing into his cheeks and forehead. Gritting his teeth against the pangs, the young trainer kept up his probing, unsure of exactly what he hoped to learn from the effort or if he looked simply to use the pain to stave off passing out as he hobbled. Either way, the battered Magman soldier limped along the sandy riverbank, shifting his weight awkwardly to the little Pokémon walking beside him and serving as his crutch each time he needed to step with his wounded leg. His whole body shaking as his muscles threatened to fail for exhaustion, the young trainer pulled his hood a little lower to shield his face from the driving, deafening rain, even as the intensity of the storm raging around him picked up and the wind threatened to bowl him mercilessly to the ground.

Stopping suddenly, Wallace's Kirlia looked to her trainer and jumped up. Grabbing his wrist and dropping back to the ground, the psychic Pokémon pulled Wallace's hand away from his face. Still holding her trainer's gaze the Kirlia gripped Wallace's hand for a few seconds prior to gingerly releasing his fingers. _'Master, please,'_ she pleaded. _'If you continue interfering with the wounds they won't heal properly.' _She stabilized herself as Wallace again leaned a sizable portion of his weight against her and continued walking. _'I'm not telling you what to do master. I'll do for you whatever you ask, but if you don't rest,'_ the Pokémon trailed off a moment. _'Master, between your vasculitis and your wounds, continuing in this state will very likely __**kill**__ you. And I couldn't-'_ she stopped abruptly, shivering as they walked through the crushing rain along the riverbank.

Tucking his grievously wounded arm into his cloak to guard the bandages from the elements, Wallace shook his head. "Can't stop," he muttered through the wraps across his mouth, continually struggling to keep shuffling one foot in front of the other. "Get to Rustboro. Have to warn them," he said, stopping and standing still as his head swam. "Team Rocket, no rest, have to," he trailed off.

Wrapping her arm around his leg and summoning around Wallace's shoulders a crimson cloud of psychic force to steady him, the Kirlia planted her narrow feet in the sand and glanced pensively up to her trainer. _'Master?'_ she probed, watching uneasily as the boy rocked from side to side in the wind.

Wallace's eyes lost any vestige of focus. "Warn them," he muttered, knees shaking and threatening to buckle. "Have to warn," the young soldier's eyes rolled back as he rocked forward and fell towards the sand.

'_Master!'_ the Pokémon's psychic shriek shot through the mist all around as she quickly summoned another cloud of force to catch her trainer. Lowering him gently to the ground, the Pokémon rolled Wallace onto his back. _'Master! __**Master**__!'_ she screamed, kneeling over him, hands on the boy's chest. Not waiting for a response, the Kirlia gripped Wallace's cloak and ripped it open. Eyes glowing red, she waved her hand and her trainer's pant leg tore itself to shreds, giving her a look at the bandages beneath. Seeing no blood seeping through the bandages around his leg, his arm, or his face, the Pokémon returned her hands to the boy's shoulder and leaned over him.

Eyes slowly closing, Wallace's head lolled to one side and he lay unmoving as the torrential rain continued to fall around him, filling the little impression the trainer left in the sand and leaving Wallace utterly still in a puddle of dark water.

SC

Head spinning and pounding, his ears ringing so intensely it hurt, Wallace began to gradually return to consciousness. For some time he refused to open his eyes, worried what scene might await him should he come to and look around, but after what felt like years of floating in a void, sick to his stomach in every conceivable way, aching all over, and desperately thirsty, the young trainer sensed the world around him taking shape. As the buzzing in his ears subsided he heard what he could only imagine to be the burning of wet wood, a symphony of popping, gently wafting air, and crackling while. Likewise as the scent of blood ebbed from his nostrils, every breath filled his lungs with the smoky aroma of a campfire. Opening his eyes then, Wallace found himself staring at an all-encompassing sandy dome overhead, illuminated by dancing rays of light streaming from a small fire encircled by stones some feet to his left.

Hesitant to sit up, the boy instead turned his head towards the fire. Finding himself in a small cave, wrapped not only in his cloak and mail, but in a thick layer of woven grass and a heavy blanket also, Wallace looked around for his Pokémon, only then noting the lack of bandages around his face. Failing to spot his psychic companion, but unable to imagine she wouldn't be somewhere nearby, Wallace sighed and turned back again, almost jerking with surprise to realize his head came to rest on something soft rather than the hard ground.

"What the hell?" Wallace muttered, glancing around the cave again to get a feel for his surroundings, spotting then the darkness beyond the mouth of the chamber from which he could hear both rain and rushing water. "Must be near the river- Oh shit!" he blurted, trying to roll to one side as he realized that during his unconsciousness nightfall must have come and gone. The severity of the action however left the trainer reeling in agonizing pain. Every sense he possessed exploded in reaction to the motion. His vision flashed and blurred, his ears rang, his skin felt as though he'd thrown himself into the campfire. "Ho!" the boy gasped, clenching his fists, closing his eyes, and deciding to lay motionless a moment longer.

Remaining still and staring at the ceiling, Wallace tried to clear any thoughts of Team Rocket or his recent battle from his mind. Nevertheless, the shadows from the fire rioting across the walls and ceiling seemed insistent on shaping themselves into familiar and disturbing shapes. The trainer's memory molded the shadows into the images of a charging Houndoom or an attacking Sneasel. To escape the waking nightmares dancing above and around him, Wallace tried closing his eyes again, but found no relief; the shadows continued harassing him in the form of phantoms and specters darting around behind his eyelids.

Hearing footsteps on the stone floor, Wallace opened his eyes and looked to the mouth of the cave. "Thank goodness you're alright!" he called out, spotting his Pokémon walking into the chamber. "I was beginning to worry-"

The Kirlia, seeing her trainer beginning to slowly sit up, threw down the brown leather pack she wore slung over one shoulder and ran to him. As the psychic moved, the bag spilled open and across the sandy floor rolled a glimmering red orb slightly larger than an orange. The glassy artifact bumped against the stones ringing in the campfire and, its movement arrested, sat glittering by the fire and filling the cave with points of sanguine light that danced and darted across the walls and ceiling. Skidding to a halt beside Wallace and dropping to her knees, the little Pokémon reached behind her trainer's back with one hand to hold him steady while gently taking his unwounded hand in her other. _'Master please, don't move too suddenly,'_ her words practically flowed together with urgency. _'You're in no condition to be awake, much less sitting up or walking around.'_

Leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, the young soldier took a shallow breath. "How long did I sleep?" he asked. "Is-" Wallace lurched forward, involuntarily gasping for air before loosing a raking cough that filled the cave with a sound like ripping of paper. He slapped his hand over his mouth and coughed several more times, each such rattling expulsion of air weaker than the one that came before until finally the boy drew his hand away from his lips, bloody. "How long was I asleep?" he repeated, glancing down at the blanket bunched up in his lap and the canned rations sitting inconspicuously by the fire. "Where did you get the supplies?"

Her hand still resting on his back, the psychic gently rubbed her fingers across Wallace's shoulders. _'Several hours,'_ she answered softly. _'This cave was only a few minutes upstream from where the mudslide washed out the bridge. Several of the carts carried off the cliff landed on the beach directly below or washed up on the riverbank a short way downstream. I've been sifting through the wrecks for anything useful,'_ she paused before nodding to the brown leather bag resting by the mouth of the cave. _'I managed to recover your pack,'_ she said. _'Are you hungry?'_

Wallace grinned and closed his eyes a moment as his stomach growled in response. "You are a goddess," he said, "my own guardian goddess of mercy. And actually I'm starving if you don't mind sharing the salvage."

Hopping to her feet, the psychic spun round and practically jumped to the silver cans resting a few feet from the crackling fire. She swept her hand through the air and one of the tin cylinders flashed red, its lid peeling open with a loud pop as the Kirlia grabbed the can, scooped up a spoon setting much closer to the fire, and offered both to Wallace. The young trainer accepted and, glancing down at the beans in the tin only momentarily, set about devouring the contents of the hot can as best he could with one functional hand. As her trainer ate, the psychic Pokémon stood silently by, her gaze growing increasingly watchful as she looked between the young soldier and the mouth of the cave. More than once she paced to the inky entrance and looked cautiously outside before returning to her trainer's side.

Lowering the can of beans and the spoon, Wallace looked quickly to the Kirlia as a thought leapt to his mind. "Sorry," he said in a rush, proffering what remained of the meal to the Pokémon, "did you want any?"

The psychic shook her head. '_Thank you master, but I've eaten already. Everything I've gathered is for you.'_

Wallace nodded slowly, even that simple action prompting his muscles to clench so painfully in protest his head swam. "Thank you so much," he answered a moment later, eyes closed as he hunched over the can in his lap. "For everything," he looked up at her as the Pokémon knelt down beside him and put a delicate hand on his shoulder. "Gods," the boy muttered, very slowly shaking his head from one side to another, "how many times over would I have been dead if not for you? Four? Five? More depending on how you tally it up? How in the world can I even begin to thank you?"

Her big red eyes softening as she looked into his emerald ones, the Kirlia held her hand on his shoulder. _'You're my master,'_ she stated with an air of plain fact, as though her words represented a completely self-evident observation. _'You don't have to thank me, and you never will,'_ she went on. _'Everything I'll ever do, I'll do for you.'_

Wallace's face twisted with curiosity. "Why?" he asked at length. "I've wanted to ask for weeks, and, I don't want to sound ungrateful or insulting, but that's something a slave would say. I," he stopped and stared at her. "You're no one's slave, least of all mine."

'_You're my master,'_ the psychic repeated. '_It isn't slavery. It's service, and it's how I show-'_ she stopped mid-thought._ 'And I-' s_he started again, as though she couldn't quite bring herself to express the statement. The Pokémon fell silent for several long seconds, looking away from her trainer and then back up and into his eyes_. 'It's my nature, my joy, to serve.'_

Refraining from an answer, Wallace turned his attention back to the nearly empty can of beans. "Well," he went on a moment later. "Thank you," he looked to his Pokémon, smiling. "If there's ever anything you need or want, I'll do everything I can to make it happen."

The Kirlia, still kneeling by his side, rested her hands in her lap. _'My pleasure,'_ she answered, pausing and looking back to the mouth of the cave, her expression soft but focused. _'Actually,'_ she continued. _'I have one request if you have the time,_' her tone grew more reserved.

Wallace began to nod but stopped himself the instant his neck started to ache. "Name it," he responded. "Anything you want."

Still looking through the cave's mouth and into the darkness beyond, the Pokémon made a sound like a low sigh. _'I'd very much like to have a name,' _she said, turning to glance to her trainer, a look of plain unease on her features. _'If it isn't too much to ask.'_

"Of course it isn't too much to ask," the young soldier set aside the empty tin as the sound of falling rain intensified and the cave filled with the scent of the river. "Well," he paused, very slowly leaning himself back and resting his elbows on the pillow at the head of his bedroll. "Guess I'd never given it much thought," he said a moment later. "Thanks to our link I never needed to shout for your attention so it never occurred to me you might need a name. Did you have a thought on the matter? Anything you'd prefer or want to avoid?"

The Kirlia shook her head. _'No,'_ she answered. _'It is entirely up to you.'_

Staring at the roof of the cave, watching as the shadows danced across the sandy stone, the boy thought a moment. "Well, I've heard of a lot of trainers using their Pokémon's species as a name," he glanced to the psychic, trying to gauge her reaction but failing to spot any change in her demeanor. "I'm not feeling it though," he muttered. "I might as well name you 'Ralts' and that could change again when you evolve. Besides, we don't go around naming people 'Human' or 'Teenager.' So," he pressed his lips into a fine line. "You sure you don't have a preference?" he looked to the Pokémon.

The Kirlia again responded in the negative. _'What's the first name that comes to mind?'_ she asked.

Wallace looked at the ground. "A goddess of mercy," he said almost beneath his breath, a grin spreading across his face. "In the old stories," the young trainer went on, "after the three titans carved the world out of the chaos and retreated to the edges of creation to sleep, the sun and the moon looked down, saw the world was empty, and decided to fill it with life. The sun birthed humanity and the moon created all the different types of Pokémon. Afterwards the moon retired to the night to rest but the sun, seeing its children were struggling in the wilds, came down to earth and showed mankind how to tame nature. She taught us agriculture, metallurgy, and how to build cities together, and after she saw we could thrive on our own she went back to the sky and she's been watching over us every day ever since. She even put the stars in the night sky to watch over us when she couldn't be there," Wallace turned to his Pokémon. "Different versions of the myth have different names for the sun, but here in Hoenn the story goes she was named Radiana." He paused a moment longer. "So, how about Radiana?"

The little psychic stared at her trainer for a few seconds before her gaze tilted upwards towards the ceiling. _'Radiana?'_ she said plainly. _'Does it please you?'_

"That's not what I asked," Wallace said. "You're the one who has to live with the name so I'll put it forward as an option but if you don't like it then we can find something else."

'_No,'_ the Pokémon turned back to the soldier. _'I like it. I'll take it.'_

Wallace grinned, an expression reflected in his Pokémon's eyes. "Radiana it is," he said happily. "There, you officially have a name." He reached over and put his hand affectionately on the psychic's head. "Oh, and as a nickname maybe we can call you Rara."

The trainer and the Pokémon fell silent a minute, their faces growing blank. "_No_," both answered in unison, though it was Wallace who continued. "No, Rara's a stupid name," he said. "That was just the morphine making me say something dumb. Forget it."

Radiana concurred. _'If it's all the same to you, no nicknames please.'_

"Fair enough," Wallace added. "When I was littler everyone I knew _insisted_ on calling me 'Wally'," his expression morphed into a jumble of amusement and irritation. "I can't tell you how much I hated that stupid nickname," he half-laughed. "My name is Wallace, not Wally. If my parents had wanted to name me after some euphemism for a man's genitals, rather than the ancient hero who fought a god to the death to save the world from eternal darkness, they'd have damn well done so."

The corner of Radiana's lip turned upwards, though she refrained from speaking for several seconds. _'Well then, perhaps we can both refrain from giving the other a stupid nickname,'_ she stated.

Wallace sighed, turning to look out the mouth of the cave. "I've lost so much time," he said, his face falling. "We'll never make it to Rustboro in time."

Scooting a little closer to her trainer, Radiana looked with him outside. _'You're safe,'_ she countered. _'That's what matters.' _The Pokémon glanced from the very corner of her eye to Wallace as his face grew tense. _'Master, if I may ask, why fight so hard for Team Magma? We could be free, go wherever you want, do whatever you want, and tying ourselves to them seems counterintuitive at best given they verge on destruction anyway. What makes them so worthy of all your efforts?'_

Another shallow sigh escaped the young trainer. "It's a long story," he muttered, turning to look at the glimmering red orb sitting by the fire.

Radiana reached over and put a hand gently on his shoulder. _'You're right,'_ she answered, a grin just beginning to tug at her lip as she looked around the sparsely furnished cave. _'We're too busy. Best wait until we're bunkered down somewhere safe with nothing to do.'_

Wallace laughed, then stopped. He waited for the pain of the action to catch up with him but went on when it failed to materialize. "It goes back to before the war," he leaned to one side, propping himself on his good arm. "Back then Hoenn was an affiliation of kingdoms, each ruled by a royal family and collectively controlled by a high king. The system was actually pretty simple; every five years the crown would rotate in a set pattern between the different royal families in an effort to minimize any fighting over power. For the most part it worked. There wasn't much in the way of open fighting between the royal families. There was a huge amount of political tension, saber rattling, and espionage, but the actual bloodshed was pretty minimal."

Crossing her legs and leaning forward, the little Pokémon focused her attention on her trainer. _'So what happened?'_ Radiana asked.

"Good question. No one is quite sure but," Wallace shrugged and trailed off. "My father told me that the Haruka clan, one of the royal families, got greedy, not wanting to give up their power. Their turn to rule was coming to an end so Norman and Caroline, the ruling patriarch and his wife, used the crown's authority to levy a number of huge taxes on the other families and emptied their coffers hiring the best mercenary armies from around the world. Naturally the other clans saw where that was going and they _all_ allied against the Harukas, hoping the threat of total annihilation would be enough to force them to back down and surrender the crown peacefully."

Transfixed on her trainer, the psychic swallowed the lump forming in her throat. _'I suppose it wasn't?" _she asked.

Wallace slowly shook his head. "No," he answered, his words solemnly masking a quivering in his tone. "It might have, if not for the efforts of two mercenary generals by the names of Samuel Oak and Utsugi Elm," he took a breath. "Elm sided with Norman and the rest of the Harukas, supplementing their already formidable armies with hundreds of trainers and literally thousands of Pokémon bred specifically for war. Oak meanwhile sided with the other allied clans and during the opening days of the war he and my grandmother tried to end things early by attacking Elm and Norman in their base in Petalburg. When the smoke cleared Oak and Elm were gone, Norman, Caroline, and my grandmother were dead, and Norman's two youngest children were missing. Everyone thought the Haruka's would surrender after that, but Norman's bastard Brendan stepped up and crowned himself high king. Without Norman's genius, and in light of Brendan's lack thereof, the war spiraled completely out of control. The allied clans exterminated the Harukas to a man, but Brendan took almost all of the other royal clans with him to the grave." He stopped and took a deep breath.

'_You certainly know a great deal about-' _Radiana cocked her head to one side. _'Your family wasn't one of the royal clans, was it?'_ she asked.

Wallace nodded, "My grandmother would have been high queen after Norman Haruka, had he stepped down when he was supposed to. My father was the only royal to survive, and he was the youngest son from his family."

The psychic's eyes twitched wider a moment. _'So you're actually royalty,'_ she stated. _'You have every bit as much claim to a hypothetical throne as this May Haruka, more even, since your family's turn to rule would have come after hers. You never mentioned any of this. I've never even heard it cross your mind.'_

"It's not relevant," the young soldier shrugged. "The old kingdom's are gone, and that's," he paused and turned to the psychic. "That's why I'm going to give everything I've got to Team Magma. They're not perfect, not even close, but they're the best chance we've got for bringing some semblance of peace to Hoenn."

'_What makes you say that?'_ asked the sanguine-eyed psychic.

Grimacing as he took a breath, Wallace slowly rolled to his stomach and stared at the glowing campfire and the glittering red orb beside it. "Team Aqua started out as a pirate alliance," he said. "They grew from a pair of run down ships with captains too weak to fight each other over territory into an armada of more than five hundred ships that pillaged Hoenn's southern and eastern shores without opposition until Magma stepped up to challenge them. Now they may control almost half the continent, but at heart they're still those pirates, more concerned with looting than with actually ruling anything. And May Haruka, with her Team Rocket thugs," he angrily fell silent. "She's no better than Aqua, not really. She wants Hoenn to bow down to her and she doesn't care who she has to kill to get there. She's just looking to finish what her father started." The young soldier went on, "And _my_ father told me about hers. If his daughter is anything like him, then we cannot let her take the hypothetical throne," he looked to his Pokémon. "Hoenn can't survive another Haruka at the helm. Just look at how many people she's already killed and how many more are poised to be slaughtered just because she wants to say she rules the continent."

'_I think understand,'_ Radiana answered.

The young soldier clenched his fists. "No, I really don't think you do," Wallace answered. "The last time our families fought over Hoenn, almost half a billion people died. Some four hundred million human beings were slaughtered or starved as a direct result of the war, and now, thanks to May and Aqua, history is primed to repeat itself. I cannot let that happen. I have to stop it Radiana. My family couldn't prevent this mess, so it's on me to clean it up." He went silent and stared at the fire.

Reaching forward again, the psychic put her hand gingerly on Wallace's. _'That's too heavy a burden for any one person to carry,'_ she said a minute later, stopping when he turned and looked up at her. _'I'd be happy to help you bear this, if you'll have me.'_

Wallace lifted his wounded arm and set his hand on the psychic's, closing his fingers around hers. "I wouldn't have it any other way," he answered.

Giving his hand a squeeze, the psychic looked between and the campfire. _'I'll keep watch tonight so you can rest easy,'_ she said. _'We can make for Rustboro first thing in the morning if you're feeling well enough to walk.'_

Wallace very slowly shifted onto his back and scooted onto the bedroll beside him. "Well enough or not," he responded somberly, "tomorrow we need to get moving. As much as I like this," he looked slowly around the cave, "secret base of ours, Team Rocket isn't going to wait for us to catch our breath."

The young trainer managed to roll to one side, angling his face away from the campfire and closing his eyes. Listening as his Pokémon got quietly to her feet, Wallace took a shallow breath and pulled the blankets bunched around his waist up over his shoulders. A few minutes slipped slowly by and the only sound in the cave, a mixture of the crackling campfire and the driving rain outside, slowly closed in around the young trainer's consciousness.

Wallace's face twisted into a grimace as, even with his eyes closed and his world slowly growing fuzzier, a single point of light flickered to life in the center of his field of view. So gradually Wallace found the change almost impossible to track, the point of light expanded to envelop his entire range of vision, taking on different colors and filling with shapes the soldier recognized. Even with his eyes closed he could see out the mouth of the cave in which he lay as plainly as though he personally sat by the entrance.

Confusion playing across his features, Wallace opened his eyes and silently rolled over to look towards the mouth of the cave. Spotting his Pokémon vigilantly standing guard at the entrance, Wallace's mind turned over what he had seen. "Odd," the trainer muttered, rolling back and closing his eyes again.

SC

His eyes snapping open, Wallace sucked in a startled breath as a wave of stiflingly heated air rolled over him. Looking around in an effort to get his bearings the young soldier felt his heart beginning to race as the total darkness in which he found himself grew hotter and hotter. In a matter of seconds the air be breathed into his lungs burned with such intensity the boy wondered what prevented him from catching fire. Worse still was the searing, fiery pain in his hand and, as he lifted his arm in a terrified bid to locate the source of the heat, Wallace spotted clenched involuntarily in his fist the glittering red orb he'd carried the past weeks.

Radiating an infernal light, the glassy artifact cast out sanguine rays that both illuminated and burned the boy's face. Filling his ears with a sickening noise and his nostrils with a nauseating odor, the sizzling and popping of roasting flesh sounded from the edges of Wallace's hand where his fingers gripped the orb. Wallace opened his mouth to scream and tried to release orb, but as he dropped to his knees, struggling desperately to overcome the block between his brain and the muscles in his arm, his fingers remained locked around the artifact. Even as his knees struck the ground Wallace felt an even greater heat engulfing his legs. Looking down the boy immediately realized he'd knelt on a floor of molten lava.

Looking up, too shocked to feel any more pain, Wallace found himself on his knees in the center of a lake of boiling magma that stretched in every direction as far as he could see beneath a sky blotted out clouds of dark smoke. As the superheated air whipped up around him, burning the boy's face and throwing his hair about, Wallace watched in utter awe as a tremendous bulge pushed up on the magma some hundreds of meters away, like a city sized bubble attempting to break through the surface of the molten lake.

As the orb in his seared hand grew yet hotter, glowing white hot with an intensity to rival the sun, Wallace watched as the rising bubble of lava rolled away and fell back to the lake, revealing beneath what the young soldier could only describe as a monster the size of a mountain rising up from the boiling magma. The beast stood on two legs, though the tremendous arms descending from its shoulders nearly brushed the surface of the lake of lava on which it stood and its enormous tail, flanged like a clawhammer, sprawled out hundreds of feet behind the monster. Its whole frame glowed and pulsed with crimson light that lit the clouds, which hovered just above its massive horned head, for thousands of feet in every direction and left Wallace terrified he'd combust from just the monster's radiating body heat.

The titanic monster rumbled, its simple act of breathing stirring up the surface of the lake of boiling rock like the wind of a storm. It turned and angled its head, a horned and bony structure covered in crimson plates of armor, directly at Wallace. Glaring at him with blank eyes of white fire that smoked and sparked, the creature opened its jaws wide, loosing a cascade of red hot lava from between its teeth that rolled over its tongue and out its mouth, falling like infernal rain.

Wallace lurched up in his bed, the monster's roar splitting the silence within his mind and catapulting him from the dream. Instantly the jerking motions bathed his whole body in a fiery ache that shattered his vision with flashing orbs of colorful light and before the young trainer could feel anything more, he noted a gentle hand fall to rest on his back. Looking over he spotted Radiana, looking to him with worry plain in her eyes.

'_Master?'_ the psychic probed.

Taking several breaths to steady himself, each a little less painful than its predecessor, Wallace leaned forward and moved to rest his elbows on his knees. Only then did he register the weight in his wounded hand and, glancing down, spotted the glassy red orb locked in his fingers. "When did I grab this?" the trainer asked nervously staring at the artifact.

Radiana fell silent. _'I didn't see you get up,' _she said slowly, stopping to examine the ground between Wallace and the campfire. _'You've slept uninterrupted since last night.'_

His stomach sinking, the young Magman soldier set the orb on the ground, only then noticing the impression in the sand by the campfire where the artifact had previously rested. His eyes following the shallow trough in the sand that ran from the orb's previous resting place to just beside his bed, the trainer swallowed the lump in his throat. "Well that can't be good." He turned to his Pokémon. "Can you hand me my bag please?"

The psychic motioned her hand through the air and, flashing dully red, Wallace's heavy leather pack leapt through the air. The trainer raised his good hand and snatched the bag from the air, setting it between his knees and opening the flap. Quickly reaching inside, Wallace drew out a thick woolen blanket and wrapped the glassy artifact within its confines, immediately thereafter depositing the mass back in the bag and tying the leather pack securely shut. "Alright," the young soldier pushed himself to his feet, prompting Radiana to jump to his side and offer him a steadying hand, "let's get moving." The psychic and her trainer then took several minutes to give their secret campsite another going over, gathering up as many useful items as they could stuff into Wallace's bag before setting off from the cave.

Raising a hand over his eyes, Wallace looked up and stepped onto the sandy riverbank as the first rays of sunrise crept over the edges of the cliffs above and bathed the high stone walls in all species of color. For the first time in weeks the young trainer could actually see the sky as there floated not a cloud overhead as far as he could see from the bottom of the ravine. As the pair angled themselves north and walked opposite the flow of the river while the hours ticked by, the sun gradually rose into view and the red and orange lights flickering throughout the canyon faded, replaced by a light of such crystal clarity and intensity that Wallace frequently found himself shielding his eyes with his good hand.

As the trainer and his Pokémon followed the twists and turns of the river, the boy noted a distinct lack of pain in his left arm or in his wounded leg. Even his chest felt considerably lighter and less restricted than Wallace felt accustomed to, and with each passing mile the boy looked to limp less and less. By midday, the trainer moved with not only a renewed purpose but with a grin on his lips as well.

Offering Radiana the remains of a seedcake he did not intend to finish, Wallace broke the relative silence of their mobile lunch. "I should pass out from exhaustion more often," he said to his Pokémon as she accepted the bar and took a bite. "I'm actually feeling pretty decent, not great but better than I've been in weeks, maybe even since I got sick."

'_Excellent,'_ responded the psychic, still chewing on her morsel. _'We can count that as good fortune.'_

Wallace took a long and slow breath, gauging just how deep he could breathe before the spasms and pain in his lungs curtailed the action. After several seconds his lungs reached capacity without complaint and the boy exhaled, leaving his face slightly redder and his head light. "I'm almost afraid to hope this is the beginning of a trend."

Walking beside her trainer, the psychic reached up and put her hand on belt to get his attention. _'Master,'_ her words bore a coloring of anxiety as they echoed in Wallace's mind. _'Last night while you slept I sensed something,'_ she paused before going on, _'unusual.'_

"And?" Wallace prompted when she failed to continue. "What happened?"

Radiana's eyes narrowed with thought as she walked. _'It's difficult to put into words, but I felt our connection, this,'_ she gestured between herself and the boy, _'link, grow stretched. It was as if, even though your body was within arm's reach, you yourself, your mind or whatever part of you with which I can psychically communicate, was far, far away.'_

Wallace grimaced, remembering his dream of the lake of lava and the monster which rose from it. "That is odd," he muttered, then adding, "Any idea where I was?"

Shaking her head, the Pokémon released her grip on her trainer and resumed looking straight ahead. _'It's impossible to tell, but it felt as though you were many thousands of miles away or, more accurately,' _the rhythm of her words slowed, _'and I hesitate to even say this, it felt like you were many thousands of miles __**below**__ me. What's more, immediately after you awoke, I felt our link change,'_ the psychic looked over to him again. _'It's as if there's a great weight pressing in at your mind: crushing levels of anxiety and dread that seem to claw at your mind almost as if with a mind of their own.'_

Wallace raised an eyebrow and the pit of his stomach twisted. "Well," he began slowly. "I believe you completely of course," he said cautiously, "but honestly I'm really not feeling any of that. I'm anxious to get to Rustboro and I'm worried Team Rocket will beat us there, but I've been more afraid of a dark room back home than I am of anything right now."

'_That's because I'm shielding you from the effects,'_ Radiana answered flatly. _'For me it's easy enough, but if I weren't protecting you from it,'_ she stopped abruptly. _'Trust me, you'd be extremely unhappy right now.'_

Walking another half mile or so in silence, Wallace stared at the sand moving beneath his feet and thought. "Any idea what's causing the," he looked for a word, "effects? Is there an outside source or is it all in my head?"

The Pokémon shrugged her shoulder noncommittally. _'I honestly can't say. If these effects persist I might be able to figure out what's going on.'_

Wallace grumbled. "Fair enough." Stumbling a moment he reached down and put a hand on the psychic's shoulder. "This isn't going to divide your attention is it? Will shielding me from this, this dread, be distracting if we get into a fight?"

Radiana began to nod but curtailed the action. _'Possibly,'_ she answered. _'As it stands now the effort required is relatively minimal, though if we get ourselves into serious trouble the added distraction might prove a hindrance.'_

"Well, thank you," Wallace smiled to his Pokémon, resting his hand on her shoulder. "Believe me, I appreciate it."

The psychic reached up and put her hand on Wallace's, walking in silence a moment longer. _'Pleasure,'_ she answered.

As the pair walked on Wallace relayed to the psychic the dream he'd had the night before, paying special attention to the glassy orb's apparent role in the happenings. As he spoke Radiana listened intently and without interruption, staring straight ahead as the ravine through which they walked grew narrower and the walls towered higher. By the time Wallace finished his story, the trainer and his Pokémon found themselves traversing a narrow strip of beach only a few meters wide as the river beside which they walked continued to widen.

As the sun passed its zenith and began its lazy descent into the west, Wallace and Radiana stopped on the edge of the river, by now more than twice as wide as it had been when they set off. Across the shallow ford before them, rising out of the bank opposite where they stood, the Pokémon and her trainer saw carved into the ravine's sand colored wall a high tower, running from the beach below to the very top of the canyon. Through the windows punctuating the tower's exterior wall both companions could see the winding staircase within, the sight of which made Wallace's heart sink.

Sensing the distress in his thoughts, Radiana turned to her trainer. _'Are you alright master?'_ she asked.

Looking up the wall of the tower, itself reaching at least a hundred feet high, Wallace swallowed the lump in his throat. "I'll be fine," he said nervously. "It's just," he again surveyed the tall, narrow steps within the tower. "I really hate stairs," he instinctively shifted his weight from one leg to the other as every muscle between his ankles and his waist began to ache in dread of the coming climb.

'_I could carry you,'_ Radiana responded. _'It wouldn't be hard.'_

"No," the boy answered. "Honestly the exercise will be good for me. If I pass out though you be sure to catch me."

The psychic nodded. _'Understood master.'_

Wallace managed to avoid passing out during his ascent of the tower, though by the time he and Radiana reached the top the boy had to stop and rest his hands on his knees, gasping for air and dripping with sweat. As the young soldier tried to catch his breath, Radiana put a hand on his back in silent solidarity, after which the two companions took a moment to get their bearings, angle themselves westwards, and resume their march towards the setting sun. By the time the sun had set, Radiana and Wallace arrived on the road which had until recently connected Rustboro to the lands to the east via the now demolished bridge. Unwilling to surrender to fatigue, Wallace pressed forward until almost midnight.

At Radiana's direction however the two partners stopped and made a rough camp some ways off the road. Refusing to light a fire for the possibility of alerting anyone to their presence, they shared a cold dinner of stale rations before turning in for the night. Against Wallace's concerns, Radiana kept watch insisting she could rest and recuperate while monitoring their surroundings for any hostile creatures or people. As such, Wallace spread a bedroll and curled up beneath the threadbare blanket he'd tucked away in his pack.

SC

Finding himself on a craggy shore of sharp black stones bordering a vast ocean of glowing magma, Wallace stood and stared dumbly for a moment. Regaining his focus, the young soldier twitched as he registered where he stood, taking his time to look around for any landmarks that might betray his location.

"Ah," the trainer mumbled, looking straight down and seeing the magma lapping at the shore like the surf on a beach, the glowing liquid stone sluggishly rolling up to the very tips of his toes before draining back out into the molten ocean. "I must be dreaming again." He glanced upwards, seeing again the ceiling of dark smoke from his previous dream stretching out in every direction.

"_**Intruder,"**_ the single word rumbled simultaneously through Wallace's mind and his ears, a voice speaking both a human tongue and as a psychic echo of such volume the young soldier reflexively dropped to his knees and pressed his hands over his ears with all his strength. _**"You are not Samuel."**_

Still shoving his palms against his ears, Wallace doubled over towards the ground as he looked around for the source of the voice, seeing only the shaking of the surface of the fiery ocean as the words rumbled and echoed from every direction at once. The boy felt as much as heard the voice as even the ground on which he knelt shook with every syllable the invisible speaker uttered. "Where are you?" the trainer managed to shout, his every nerve buzzing from the voice having physically so shaken him. "Who are you?"

"_**Human,"**_ the enormous, rumbling speaker continued, leaving Wallace crumpled as though the single word had struck against him a crippling blow. _**"You fumble in my mind, ignorant, utterly incapable of comprehension." **_The voice grew yet louder, speaking with a perfect serenity but rumbling such that Wallace wondered how the world kept from flying apart before the intensity of the sound. _**"I am Groudon,"**_it said.

Dropping his forehead to the ground, Wallace gave up searching for the source of the voice and instead closed his eyes and braced himself against the shaking.

"_**Tell me,"**_ the voice demanded, _**"who, or what, are you?"**_

The young soldier looked up only slightly. "My name's Wallace," he answered after taking a moment in an effort to compose himself. "Wallace Weaver. I'm sorry," he called out, "I don't know why I'm here. I didn't mean to intrude."

"_**Yet here you are,"**_ Groudon's response shook the boy to his core, _**"fighting to survive even the most superficial contact with but the tiniest fraction of my mind, a mote of dust struggling against the winds of a hurricane. However,"**_ Groudon's tone grew introspective, _**"perhaps you could prove yourself useful to me."**_

Shifting such that he could both rest his elbows on the ground and resume his search for the source of the voice, Wallace suddenly sensed that no matter where he looked in the apparently empty hellscape he stared straight into the eyes of an alien being of immeasurable power. Paralyzed with fear, he tried to breathe but barely succeeded in even parting his lips. "I'll be leaving," he managed to call out. "I'll just get out of here and be out of your hair."

A thunderous clap knocked Wallace prone, followed by another such explosion and then another. As the rumblings subsided Wallace realized the entity was laughing. _**"Yes, you will,"**_ the voice returned, _**"for you are of no use here."**_

The young trainer looked up, confused. "Use to you?" he asked, his tone a combination of terrified and curious. "What do you want from me?"

"_**You will help me finish what began a generation ago,"**_Groudon rumbled. _**"You will undo my shackles that I may burn the filth from this world."**_

"What?" the trainer gasped. "Burn the filth? What on earth do you mean by that?" Wallace found his thoughts beginning to stabilize and his fear lessened in intensity without ebbing away entirely.

"_**You will free me that I may end the reign of man and cleanse from my world all impurities, all traces of the wind and water,"**_ Groudon answered. _**"Too long has mankind claimed mastery of nature and too long have agents of the deep roamed unchecked across my land. Your service,"**_ the voice focused in on Wallace, _**"will be as the falling of a stone that launches the avalanche. Groudon will rise. All will burn."**_

The knot in his stomach twisting and growing hot, Wallace felt his terror beginning to give way. Looking up again he tightened his jaw and balled his hands into fists as he pushed himself to his feet. "I don't know who you think you are," the boy called out, looking around for an agent he could face. "But you don't get to order me to do anything!"

"_**Presumptuous, arrogant speck,"**_ Groudon sounded in a low roar, threatening to knock Wallace to his knees again. _**"Yours is not to challenge or dare to deny me. The sum total of your purpose is to grovel to serve me, to beg I deign to make you an instrument of my will."**_

"Don't like it?" the young soldier shouted, an edge of defiance overtaking and rising above the fear in his voice. "Blow me!"

A blast of searing air bowled into Wallace from above, crashing against his shoulders with such force he dropped to his knees, his nose filling with the smell of his own burning flesh. _**"Insolence gains you nothing,"**_ Groudon's bellow threw Wallace to his back on the hot ground, every word striking the boy with such crushing force Wallace felt as though his very bones would break beneath them at any moment. _**"You will serve me. The only question is whether or not you will do so of your own will or because I have so broken you that no choice remains."**_

Lying flat, his arms out to his sides and immobilized by an invisible, crushing weight, Wallace strained with all his strength to move, but failed to even budge. "And you say I'm the ignorant one," the biting defiance in his words sharpening further. "I said I'm not doing anything for you, so blow me you- Ah!" the trainer screamed as his eyes snapped open painfully wide. A screeching howl stabbed at his ears and into his mind like an intangible knife. Wallace screwed his eyes shut, straining to turn his head to the side as if to escape the psychic edge he felt sawing into his skull.

"_**Resist,"**_ Groudon laughed the word. _**"Please, fight with all your strength. Put your heart into it if you think it makes any difference."**_

Howling in pain, Wallace heaved against the force holding him in place. Wrenching one arm free of its invisible restraints, Wallace raked his nails down his forehead. "Stay out of my head!" he screamed, his skull boiling with pain as if unseen talons dug into his head trying to pull his skull wide open. "I am not helping you!" he screamed.

Wallace froze, wanting nothing more than to stand and walk away but unable to move or even speak. He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth together, closing his eyes tight and pressing his cheek to the ground. Wallace took a breath to scream, but an instant later felt the infernal heat and the crushing oppression of the malevolent presence vanish. He shook with the sudden change of stimuli as he found himself laying on a bedroll beneath a threadbare blanket, early morning sunshine streaming down on his face. His breathing punctuated by short and rapid spasms in his chest, Wallace opened his eyes and spotted Radiana kneeling above him, her own big red eyes staring down at him with no shortage of worry.

'_Master,'_ her voice, psychic as it was, shook with nerves. _'Are you alright?'_

Wallace looked around their little campsite before taking hold of the corner of his blanket and pressing it against his forehead, pulling it away soaked with sweat. "I don't think so," he muttered, dropping the blanket and sitting up as his Pokémon shuffled back a few inches. "Something is very, very wrong," he rested his wrists on his knees, staring at his backpack as if he expected the orb within to burn its way out at any second.

'_Yes,'_ the psychic responded. _'Master, moments ago the defenses I raised in your mind nearly shattered. Something tried to smash its way in and it took everything I had just to keep your mind intact,'_ she went on. _'You were tossing in your sleep whenever the attacker tried to force its way in so I woke you, hoping that would end the attack.'_

Wallace sighed and dropped his head. "Good call," he answered. "Thank you."

'_Master,'_ the Pokémon leaned forward and put a hand gently on her trainer's arm. _'What happened?'_

Still shaking with fear, Wallace turned from his companion and stared at his backpack. "I'm not sure, but either I'm having the worst and most realistic nightmares in history, or we've stumbled backwards upon the most powerful, most evil, creature I've ever imagined," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "Come on," he said, reaching down and shouldering his pack. "We've got to get to Rustboro. We can talk on the way."

Radiana swept her hand through a quick motion and her trainer's backpack, flashing red, shot through the air and into Wallace's hand. _'Master,' _she began sheepishly as Wallace stuffed his bedroll and blanket into the leather pack, _'I don't know what we're dealing with, and I want you to know that I'll do everything in my power to protect you from it, but unless the power I felt today accounts for absolutely everything this,' _she took a brief second to choose her next word, _'adversary can throw at us, I doubt I'll be of any use against it,' _the psychic looked up and into her trainer's eyes, anxiety and something approaching sadness plain in her own as tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.

Without a second's hesitation, Wallace knelt down in front of his Pokémon and put his hands on her shoulders. "You'll do your best and I'm positive that will be enough," he said firmly. "I have total faith in you and that won't change no matter what happens. Clear?" he smiled.

Her breathing still noticeably shaky, the Pokémon hesitated only a second before jumping forward and throwing her arms around Wallace's neck, burying her face in his shoulder and pulling herself tight against him. _'I'll get stronger,'_ she answered. _'I promise I'll never stop working until I'm strong enough to protect you.'_

Embracing the psychic as best he could with his wounded arm, Wallace patted her back. "That wasn't what I meant for you to take away from this," he said as comfortingly as he could. "Don't worry. We're going to be alright. Now," the young soldier leaned back enough to see her eye to eye, reaching up with one hand to wipe a tear from her cheek, "we've got an invasion to stop."


	11. Wallace - Chapter 5 - Flame on the Water

AN: Here we need a massive shout-out of gratitude and praise to bcsj for all their excellent work on a recent project to actually put _The Sun Soul_ into print. Having viewed the final product I have to say that it would look pretty fantastic for even a professional work, and the fact that it's the work of a fan is just mind blowing to me.

So, here's to bcsj. Make sure to give up a big round of applause. I know I sure did.

Peace!

* * *

><p>Wallace – Chapter Five – Flames on the Water<p>

Cresting the tall and grassy hill, Wallace stopped and leaned forward. Resting his hands on his knees and taking several deep breaths while his head spun, the young trainer opened his eyes and looked down as the little Pokémon beside him reached up and put a hand on his leg. Responding with an affectionate pat on her head, the boy stood up and stared along the slope of the hill on which he stood.

Flowing east towards him from the far horizon, the ocean glimmered like a sheet of polished sapphire beneath the glowing sun in the cloudless sky, unbroken by visible waves or disturbances of any kind save the great protrusions of stone and sand jutting into the water from Hoenn's western coastline. The resulting bay of placid water, a great basin perhaps two and a half or three kilometers across stood open to the ocean on its western flank, shielded in the north and south by the arms of sand and stone extending westward, and adorned by a beach of glittering yellow sand on its eastern front. Built up along the beach and extending inland more than a mile stood the city of Rustboro, a collection of hundreds of structures varying between one and twenty stories high, laid out on a nearly perfect grid of streets, and ringed in by a network of watchtowers and low palisades. As the sun rose higher in the sky, less than an hour from attaining its zenith for the day, Wallace surveyed the bay and the ocean beyond it, spotting no ships or landing craft or any artificial constructs of any kind.

Raising his hand to shield his face, Wallace stared out to sea, straining to catch a glimpse of Team Rocket's armada but seeing nothing of the sort. "I guess we beat Rocket here," Wallace turned to Radiana, feeling as though a great weight lifted itself from his chest.

Her eyes narrowing, the psychic maintained her trainer's stare to the west. "Perhaps the misdirection you fed that Rocket soldier bought us some time after all. Forgive me," she looked up to him abruptly. "I did not mean to doubt you." The Pokémon turned again to look off to sea. "Well played."

Sighing with relief and letting his head droop forward, Wallace visibly relaxed and put a hand on Radiana's shoulder. "C'mon," he said, surveying the lay of the city and talking himself through the search. "Captain McNomic said our headquarters are on the outskirts of the city, just south of the fifteenth watchtower from the north," the young soldier stood on the hill and, spotted the first of the prominent stone towers ringing in the city, counted his way down. "There," he pointed to a two story structure. Unlike the rest of the city the particular building to which Wallace gestured looked to have been constructed recently and primarily of wooden timbers rather than the light grey and white stone which dominated the rest of Rustboro's architecture.

Motioning for his Pokémon to follow, Wallace set off down the hill, maintaining his pace despite the burning in his legs and the fatigue gnawing at his arms and his back. As he walked though, despite Radiana ambling directly beside him and frequently reassuring him with a pat on the leg or his side, Wallace felt a nebulous dread creeping into the pit of his stomach and slowly spreading throughout his core. Almost in tandem with the darkening of his spirit Wallace suddenly noticed the world around him beginning to grow darker as well; the grass beneath his feet dulled until the hitherto glistening spikes of emerald foliage looked almost dead, and the shining cerulean ocean's luster faded and the waters took on an virtually murky look.

Her whole frame jerking as though she'd suffered a blow, Radiana dropped to her knees and gasped, her hand snapping out as she grabbed a fistful of her trainer's pant leg to steady herself. _'Master,' _she gasped as Wallace instinctively dropped to one knee and wrapped one arm around her to hold the psychic steady. _'Master!'_ she this time screamed, the psychic echo radiating barefaced fear. _'It's here,_' her breathing grew rapid. She reached with her free hand and pressed her palm to her temple, squinting and projecting an icy focus.

Wallace looked up and felt his mouth grow dry. "Radiana?" he muttered nervously, unflinchingly watching as the sky darkened. Grey clouds that grew blacker by the second climbed over the western horizon and rolled east with an unnatural speed on the calm afternoon. The air likewise seemed to grow both dark and dry as the gathering clouds sucked any moisture from the atmosphere. Overtaking the sun and plunging the world as far as Wallace could see in an inky gloom the clouds continued their relentless race east, flashing occasionally with internal lights, punctuated by regular and frequent rumbles of thunder.

Tugging at her trainer's belt, Radiana looked to Wallace as he looked down to her. _'We need to leave, now_. _Team Rocket is coming,'_ the psychic stated, her tone growing unnaturally calm as she stood up and refocused her attention on the horizon. _'And they've brought something-'_ she paused just long enough to search for a proper descriptor, _'big.'_

Wallace gritted his teeth. "I don't see any ships yet," he barked, putting his hand on Radiana's, wrapping his fingers around hers, and setting off down the hill again. "We've got to get to headquarters and warn them!"

As Wallace ran, his motions heavy and awkward from exhaustion, the weight of his mail, and lack of practice, the clouds overhead grew yet darker and seemed to descend towards the city below until perhaps only a few hundred feet separated the tops of Rustboro's shortest buildings from the bottom of the black haze. By the time Wallace arrived within a hundred meters of the Magman headquarters he could clearly make out the figures in orange armor standing atop the watchtowers and the shorter building's roof. Too tired to call out, the young soldier focused instead on closing the distance between himself and the town.

Her voice piercing into his mind, Radiana grabbed her trainer and pulled them both to a stop. _'Master Stop!' _she shouted. _'We're too late. It's here.'_

Looking to the clouds above the Magman headquarters, Wallace's mouth dropped open. A single bolt of lightning blazing brighter than the sun shot between the clouds and the roof of Team Magma's headquarters. An instant later Wallace's whole field of vision exploded in a white flash as the wooden building only a few hundred feet away disappeared in a silent fireball the size of a city block. The deafening roar of the detonation then bowled Wallace to the ground, throwing him to his back and leaving him ill and wheezing with pain.

The young soldier pushed himself to one elbow as Radiana knelt to help him up, both trainer and Pokémon looking up as the fireball that had been Magma's headquarters rose and carried aloft in its wake all manner of debris, smoke, and dust. Even over such a cacophony Wallace and Radiana heard from above the clouds the shrieking and roaring of dozens of Pokémon, spotting mere seconds later many winged shapes as they'd heard warcries descending out of the gloom.

His heart dropping into his stomach, Wallace felt his chest clench in fear. A dozen Fearow and as many Pidgeot, Golbat, Pidgeotto, and Venamoth, even a pair of Charizard dove out of the sky and angled for the watchtowers surrounding the city. As the flighted Pokémon engaged the trainers in the watchtowers, a brief flurry of bolts of lightning and blasts of fire shot through the air and illuminated the gloom like fireworks. Seemingly mere instants later the towers nearest the demolished headquarters burst into flame and continued burning like torches as their assailants turned their attention on the still shocked inhabitants of the next targeted tower. Wallace watched in horror as the towers blazed and smoked, unable to look away as more than once a humanoid shape would leap from the burning post and hurdle towards the ground some fifty feet below.

'_Master!'_ Radiana's voice snapped Wallace from his shock. _'We need to leave!'_

Shaking his head, Wallace pushed himself to his feet. "There could be survivors!" he shouted back, running for the still burning wreckage of the headquarters. "We need to help them evacuate however we can!"

As the young soldier passed between two of the watchtowers, running through an abandoned gate in the palisade, he heard the roaring of the spreading fires and the screams of the wounded and the terrified. Everywhere he looked people had begun stepping out of the surrounding buildings or poking their heads out of windows to see what was going on and, as he neared the ruins, the trainer spotted numerous men and women and their Pokémon standing and staring dumbstruck at the burning headquarters.

Skidding to a stop in the midst of about a dozen trainers and Magman soldiers, Wallace took in the faces around him as the other soldiers, most as young as if not younger than himself he saw, turned to look at him. "I'm Lieutenant Wallace Weaver!" shouted the young trainer, Radiana right beside him. "Who's in charge here?"

A young woman stepped forward and slowly raised one hand to draw Wallace's attention just as the wailing of sirens began rising up from all throughout the city. "Our Gym Leader and all of Team Magma's officers were in there for a logistics meeting," she pointed to the burning wreckage, her voice barely audible as the wind from the fire violently tossed her light brown hair about. "I think that makes me the new Gym Leader," she went on, shock plain in both her voice and her crimson eyes. "And if you're a lieutenant then that probably makes you the garrison's ranking officer."

Wallace flinched, but quickly shook himself out of it. "Fine, whatever," he barked. "What's your name?" he asked the trainer with the sanguine eyes.

"Roxanne," she answered, gasping then as if just regaining her senses. "What's going on?" he hand went to her belt and she grabbed a pokeball. "What's attacking us?"

Before he could answer Wallace turned as one of the trainers in orange mail beside him screamed for everyone to watch out. An instant later a Charizard and its armored rider streaked out of the sky towards them. As the dragon opened its jaws, angling for the gathering of trainers, Wallace grabbed his Kirlia's wrist, wrapped one arm around Roxanne's waist, and threw himself to the side with all his strength. Radiana swept one hand through the air and instantly a sheet of pale yellow light sprang to life between her trainer and the diving Charizard. The trio collapsed to the ground just as the dragon shot by and the road on which they'd stood a moment prior burst into flame, several of the tongues of fire and bits of burning debris turned away from the would-be victims only by Radiana's shield. Two of the Magman soldiers tumbled away from the attack, their bodies engulfed in fire, as the remaining troopers likewise leapt away or dove for cover.

Even as dirt and bits of debris rained down on them, Wallace turned to Rustboro's newest Gym Leader and they both shifted up to their knees. "Roxanne!" he shouted over the noise all around. "Listen to me, Team Rocket is here! We don't have near enough manpower to stop them so we need to fall back or we're all dead!"

Roxanne's features visibly fell as what little color her face possessed drained away. "That's impossible," she shouted back over the noise. "Rocket was supposed to march east! They weren't going to target Rustboro!"

Wallace jerked to one side to look skywards as another grating roar tore through the afternoon, but turned back to Roxanne when no immediate threat materialized. "Well they did!" he answered. "Now we need to get as many personnel as possible out of the city before it's overrun. How do we order a full retreat?" Wallace waited a moment, his frustration obvious, for Roxanne to respond. "Hey!" he barked again, the shout leaving his chest tight and pained, as the young woman beside him looked blankly at the ground. "We don't have time for this! How can we get our people out of here!?"

Features still blank with shock, Roxanne looked between Wallace and the ground without answering.

Stepping up beside her trainer, Radiana crossed her hands behind her back. _'Slap her?'_ suggested the psychic.

Wallace shook his head, instead putting his hands on the Gym Leader's shoulders. "Roxanne," he said as calmly as he could, though an edge of anxiety still colored his tone, "time is not on our side, please," he pleaded, very lightly shaking her shoulders as if to wake her up. "How can we get our men away from those flyers and out of the city?" He paused to wait but grimaced as Roxanne remained silent and shifted her full attention to the ground at her knees.

'_She's in shock,'_ the psychic put her hand on Wallace's shoulder. _'We should get out of here.'_

Thinking a moment, Wallace tightened his grip on Roxanne's shoulders before taking a breath and visibly steeling himself. Shifting quickly forward the young soldier closed his eyes and jammed his lips against Roxanne's, forcefully kissing her and pulling her closer to him as both Radiana's eyes and Roxanne's snapped open wide. The latter sat stunned for a moment before her focus returned and she began to pull away, slapping Wallace across the face several times with both hands before he let go and leaned back.

Wiping one hand across her lips, Roxanne scuttled back and pressed her other fist over her chest. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she yelled, glaring at the young soldier.

"Getting your attention!" Wallace shouted back, pushing himself to his feet as Roxanne mirrored his action and Radiana took a step backwards. "Now I need you to tell me right now, how can we evacuate Team Magma's and your Gym's people?"

"Uh. We could, uh," Roxanne stammered, her eyes flitting from side to side as she gathered herself. "The sewers," she answered a moment later. "Rustboro was built above a series of tidal caves that were drained, sealed off, and repurposed for the sewer system. It's more than spacious enough to allow for everyone to get out, plus there are tunnels running between the Gym and Devon's main office that feed into the sewers."

Wallace nodded. "Good start," he answered. "How do we get everyone into the sewers and where do we go from there?"

Roxanne moaned quietly, her hands shaking as she wracked her brain, desperately trying to maintain a semblance of her composure. "The tunnels come out a few kilometers north of town. Route One Fifteen is heavily forested and leads towards Fallarbor."

A wide but nervous grin spread across Wallace's face even as the roaring of fires consuming the city's watchtowers and Magma's outposts grew louder. "Excellent," he almost cheered. "Fallarbor has a huge Magman presence. How do we get the word out for everyone to evacuate?"

"Normally we'd use the emergency broadcast radio," Roxanne answered.

"Alright," Wallace responded. "Where's that?"

Roxanne pointed to the burning ruin of Team Magma's base and Wallace's face fell. The latter cursed, but Roxanne quickly went on, "If we could get to the beach there's a weather station with a radio; it's old but powerful and if I can get a few minutes I should be able to rig it up to send out an emergency broadcast."

Turning to his Pokémon, Wallace looked between the street before him and Radiana. "Care for a walk on the beach?" he asked.

Speaking almost too calmly for the situation, Radiana nodded. _'Lead the way,'_ she answered flatly.

Running from the middle of the street Wallace, Radiana, and Roxanne ducked beside one of Rustboro's many stone buildings and began hurrying west as quickly and clandestinely as possible. More than once they had to flee into an alley as a whole squad of flighted Pokémon soared overhead, only emerging from cover when the threat had passed. As they ran the trio heard the roaring of fires growing quieter and the frequency of diving attacks by Rocket's airborne forces decreasing. Nevertheless the panic sewn in Rustboro by the attacks from above took hold and froze the city in panic. Everywhere groups of people would emerge from their homes or other buildings, only to flee back inside at the sight of the monsters flying overhead. Anyone showing signs of resistance, trainers unleashing Pokémon or soldiers drawing weapons, were swooped down upon by the Rocket Forces and either driven inside or slain in the streets, cut down by flashes of lightning, bolts of fire, or a mounted archer's well-aimed missile.

As the party ducked out from between two buildings, Roxanne looked skywards, watching as a Charizard flew west, followed by no fewer than a dozen Fearow and as many other Pokémon. "Where are they going?" asked the novice Gym Leader. "All our flyers were killed at the HQ."

Rounding a corner and finding themselves on a wide, paved street running parallel to Rustboro's lengthy beach, Wallace skidded to a stop, prompting Roxanne and Radiana to do the same. The city ended abruptly at the road, with none of its structures or streets spilling out onto the beach save a single concrete building sporting a steel antenna perhaps a hundred feet high poking out of the sand on the water's edge. Neither the structure nor the beach on which it sat drew Wallace's attention however.

The young soldier stood silent and shocked, staring at the bay beyond the beach on which floated at least twenty warships painted black and red, completely blocking the exit from the bay to the open ocean beyond. Beyond those warships Wallace saw what he guessed to be a number of transport vessels, short but wide vehicles of black steel which outnumbered the battleships at least two to one. Next to draw Wallace's attention were the many dozens of landing craft, small steel boats shielded from attacks from the front and above, floating in formations before the larger warships. Having yet to begin their race for the beach, the assault craft waited menacingly as Wallace watched even smaller boats ferry men in gleaming black armor from the warships and transports to the landing craft.

Wallace could only imagine the resources Team Rocket had poured into this invasion.

Spotting the heavy chain securing the structure's entrance, Roxanne meanwhile sprinted across the beach to the door of the weather station, jumped, and threw her shoulder against the deadbolt. A loud crack filled the air but the door remained fastly closed. "The damn thing won't open!" she swore through clenched teeth, tears forming in her eyes even as she drew a pokeball from her belt and kicked at the door. When the door steadfastly refused to give and Wallace remained motionlessly staring at the waiting Rocket armada, Roxanne threw the pokeball to the ground. As the little orb split open and the whirling dervish of white light materialized, Roxanne stepped back. "Geodude!" she shouted as a squat, spheroid Pokémon boasting inhumanly muscular arms and a skin the color of slate, rolled out of the light and awaited orders. "Get me in there _now_!"

Wallace snapped to, shifting his attention from the warships perhaps a thousand meters away to the young woman and her Pokémon as the Geodude invested the next several seconds in smashing the metal door messily off its hinges before throwing the obstacle from its trainer's path. "We're not going to have enough time," Wallace muttered, turning back to fleet, then Roxanne, then back again. "How long will you need to get that radio broadcasting?" he shouted.

Looking over to Wallace, Roxanne's features grew hard and serious. "Depends, ten- maybe fifteen minutes, how long do we have?"

Watching as the last of the loading boats disappeared behind the warships and the dozens of landing craft began chugging through the water for Rustboro's beach, Wallace muttered beneath his breath, "not nearly so long as that." He motioned for Roxanne to go. "Just get it done!" he shouted. "No matter what happens, you get that radio functioning and you give the order to evacuate!"

Roxanne nodded. "I'll have the instructions blaring from every radio in Rustboro. Where will you be?"

Waiting a moment to answer, Wallace looked to his Pokémon as the psychic stepped silently up beside him. "No telling," he answered too quietly for her to hear before going on. "Just get it done!" he shouted. "I'll see to holding the entrance!"

"Hey Wallace!" Roxanne called, poking her head out the door. "Try not to die!" She disappeared inside the building with her Geodude, leaving Wallace and Radiana alone on the beach as no fewer than one hundred and fifty Team Rocket landing craft, each packed with soldiers and trainers, charged for the beach.

The young trainer turned to Radiana. "Any ideas?" he asked.

Radiana slowly shook her head without looking up. _'You never seem content to flee with me to safety,'_ she shrugged one shoulder. _'So no, none at all.'_

"Alright," Wallace answered, dropping to one knee and pulling his backpack around before him. "In that case I don't feel so bad about doing this." He unfastened the leather strap holding the pack closed and upended the leather bag, dumping its contents out in an unceremonious heap. An instant later the red orb, glowing as ever with its own internal crimson light, plopped down on the beach with a loud thud and a small spray of sand that hinted at the artifact weighing much more than it appearance suggested. "Radiana," Wallace said as calmly as he could, though his voice still shook with anxiety as he picked up the orb, "drop the shield around my mind, please."

Spinning on her heel, the psychic faced her trainer, her eyes wide and her expression aghast. _'Master no,' _she answered, her words rushed nearly to the point of unintelligibility. _'There's no way to know what will happen or if you can even establish contact,'_ Radiana got a grip on the meter of her words and reached with one hand to grab at her trainer's belt. _'This Groudon wants to crush you and I can see no good coming of asking its help.'_

Wallace nodded as the Rocket landing crafts closed within five hundred yards of the beach. "If we had the time I'd work on a better plan," he answered, wearing a nervous smile as the roiling and glowing smoke within the orb seemed to spin just a little faster at his touch, "but on such short notice this is the best I can do."

Tightening her grip on his belt, Radiana began to tremble. _'Master I'm sorry I was-'_ she cut herself off, looking out over the bay to the approaching transports. _'You're sure you want to go through with this?'_

Wallace shook his head, laughing nervously for a few seconds before getting a grip. "Not in the slightest," he answered. "Do it."

Radiana continued shaking lightly. _'I'll be right beside you the whole time,'_ she said, straightening her shoulders as if bracing against an impending attack, _'even if you can't see me.'_

Wallace took a deep breath, feeling suddenly a profound sense of nakedness despite his mail and cloak as he looked down and saw the red orb clenched in his fist begin to shine with the intensity of a miniature sun. An instant later the young soldier felt his stomach twist with nausea as both a deathly chill and a hellish wave of heat overtook him. He looked up and about, finding himself still on Rustboro's beach with Radiana at his side and the Rocket assault crafts closing, but struck by an overwhelming sense of isolation.

Never before had he felt smaller or more alone.

"_**Human,"**_ the thunderous greeting echoed through the trainer's mind with what felt to be bone-shaking force. _**"You terminated our previous exchange prematurely. Now, unable even to comprehend the scope of my omnipotence yet knowing full well I can annihilate you with less than a fraction of a thought, you approach me willingly and defenselessly."**_ Groudon's voice trailed off and, Wallace sensed through the cloud of fear scratching at the edges of his mind, bore a hint of curiosity.

Beginning to shiver, Wallace shook himself once to put an end to his trembling. "You mentioned last time we talked that you had a job for me, something about releasing you from a binding of some kind," the young trainer called out, his voice carrying off and into the distance with unnatural clarity. "I thought we might be able to make a deal."

Trembling again as he sensed the chill stabbing into his spine grow more intense, Wallace glanced around, another sensation taking hold. Prompted to scan his surroundings by a sense that _something_ was sickeningly wrong, the young soldier instantly noted the flaw in the world around him: it seemed to be standing still in time. As he looked down to Radiana, Wallace saw her holding onto him, unbreathing and unblinking, still as a statue. Likewise looking out over the bay Wallace spotted the landing crafts frozen in place, some cresting a wave while others sat unmoving in the trough of an identically motionless dip in the water. The world as far as the boy could see sat still as a photograph.

"_**You grossly overestimate your utility,"**_ Groudon's booming voice returned, _**"a bacterium attempting to bargain with continent."**_

Wallace turned around and watched as, from over the eastern horizon a hazy, almost transparent form seemed to take shape in the atmosphere. Like a mountainous storm cloud walking on two legs, the incalculably huge figure of a titanic beast rose up and towered over Wallace, staring down at the boy with eyes like the sun shining through fog.

"I don't doubt your power," Wallace stated as calmly as he could, "and I'm all too aware of how easily and how quickly you could wipe me off the face of the world so, as rude as I've been, I have to wonder why you haven't." Wallace went silent a moment, waiting for an answer from the titan above him but continuing when Groudon remained silent. "I think you need something, and I think that something is this," Wallace held up the orb, looking straight into the titan's eyes. "Am I right?"

The glowing eyes set in his monstrous form narrowed but Groudon remained silent.

Unable to prevent a smug but still nervous grin from spreading over his face, Wallace lowered the orb. "So," he began, "you should probably know I've left express orders with my psychic companion here, the one capable of fighting off your influence, that should _anything _happen to me she's to take this artifact as far over the horizon as a ship can carry her and send your orb to the bottom of the _goddamned ocean_," Wallace lied as forcefully as he could. "So have I got your attention now?"

"_**And you should know,"**_ Groudon's booming voice grew lower and more menacing, _**"that if she does your destruction will be slow and complete. Nothing of you will remain to crawl off to whatever afterlife awaits."**_

Wallace took a deep breath and lowered the orb. "So that's a yes," he said. "But you seem to think that destruction scares me. Groudon," Wallace shifted his weight from one foot to the other, "as near as I care, I died months ago and every second since is just one more I have to put up with living in this condition, just waiting for a relapse to finish what started months ago. I don't think _you_ understand how little I fear the worst you can possibly do to me." The young soldier paused as he felt the oppressive heat and withering chills ebb away slightly.

"_**What do you want?"**_ Groudon asked.

"Team Rocket is closing on this city as we speak," Wallace answered, pointing with his free hand towards the bay and the ships floating thereon. "When their forces land they'll seize control and either kill or imprison every Magman and Gym Member they find. You're going to stop them and save this city. In exchange I won't dump this orb in the middle of the ocean. Fair?"

The monstrous figure looming over the eastern horizon grew larger as though it took a step closer to Wallace, its two shining eyes burning with what the boy could only assume to be fury. _**"In exchange,"**_ Groudon's words thundered in Wallace's mind, confirming the young soldier's suspicion as to the titan's mood, _**"you will do exactly as I say with the relic."**_

"Deal," Wallace answered. "So, you'll put an end to this invasion?"

At that Groudon's avatar began to draw away, its form shrinking back over the horizon as its glowing eyes faded and went out. Wallace then turned back to the west and looked out over the bay as, ever so slowly, motion crept back into the world around him. He watched as the actions of the waves resumed at a tiny fraction of its previous pace and the Rocket ships resumed chugging through the water. Radiana likewise continued her truncated breath and her eyelids just started to roll downwards to blink.

The young soldier looked down at his hand when he felt the orb he clutched begin to vibrate. Holding it up before him as the world all-around began to speed up again, Wallace cocked his head curiously to one side, unsure of exactly what it was he witnessed while the crimson smoke inside the artifact boiled about with a speed the boy had yet to see.

A thunderous explosion centered on the orb threw Wallace backwards, snapping his arm to one side and sending the trainer tumbling through the sand as the crimson orb hovered in midair for only a second before dropping to the ground below like a stone. Wallace lay stunned, his head spinning, his ears ringing, the taste of blood in his mouth. It took the trainer a moment to realize Radiana had rushed to his side and knelt by him, her hands desperately clutching at his, her big red eyes full of concern. Even though the boy felt the echoes of the psychic's words bouncing around inside his mind, his shaken brain struggled to comprehend exactly what it was his partner mentally shouted at him.

Pushing himself back up to one elbow, Wallace groaned and clenched his eyes shut, stabbing pains slashing through his chest with every heartbeat. "What did you say?" he managed to mutter, opening his eyes enough to look at his psychic partner.

'_Are you alright?'_ asked the Pokémon. _'I lowered the shield and an instant later the orb exploded. Did you contact Groudon? Did it try to kill you? Are you hurt?'_

Wallace began to nod but then shook his head. "I've been worse," he coughed. "Though I think I just blackmailed a god-" the young soldier stopped and flinched as a beam of sunlight broke through the dark clouds overhead and struck him in the face. Watching from his trench in the sand, Wallace's eyes grew wide as the tiny pinhole of light in the clouds overhead exploded outwards, like a shockwave propagating through smoke and opening in its wake a window to a clear and brilliant sky above. "Oh crap," he muttered, his skin growing cold as the color drained from his face. "Radiana-"

Unable to finish his sentence, Wallace gasped in surprise as a tremor cracked through the grand beneath him with sufficient force to throw the boy and his Pokémon several inches into the air before they landed again in the soft sand. Within a second's time the sky overhead shone completely free of clouds and sunlight so warm as to border on uncomfortable streaked down from above. The tremor continued on, shaking the ground and stirring up the sand as though a herd of Pokémon rumbled by and, as Wallace looked to his left and then to his right he saw the whole beach vibrated with sufficient energy to generate a fog of sand that hovered an inch or two over the ground.

Taking several seconds to get a steady footing, Wallace pushed himself upright and looked out over the bay, curiosity and terror both struggling for total control of his mind. An instant later the rumbling along the beach stopped and the low cloud of sand dropped back to the ground and lay still as the world likewise seemed to go quiet by comparison. Wallace licked his lips and braced himself like a boxer waiting for an incoming blow.

Then the ground shook once and hard. The air filled with a thunderous rumble and the shrieking of tearing metal as Wallace looked out on the water and witnessed a dozen of Team Rocket's warships catapult twenty or more meters into the air, carried up by and impaled upon enormous stalagmites of red stone. The earthen spikes pierced the hulls with surgical precision but unrelenting power, cutting through the steel with such force that each such assaulted ship broke to pieces beneath the strength of the blow and crumbled apart under gravity's merciless pull.

As Wallace's jaw dropped and the destroyed vessels disintegrated into the water below, raining metal and screaming men into the waves, another rumble coursed through the earth. As quickly as the first volley of stalagmites had erupted and torn open the warships, more stone spikes, far greater in number but also considerably smaller than their predecessors exploded underneath the oncoming ranks of landing vehicles, throwing, as near as Wallace could see, every such craft clear out of the water. Some were flipped upside down before crashing back into the water while others flew to pieces and others remained simply impaled and hanging in the air on the spikes.

Still unable to grasp exactly what they watched, Wallace and Radiana looked at each other, dumbly, for only a moment before turning back to observe as a third tremor shook the beach. This time however the pair bore witness to only a single enormous spike of stone, the color of obsidian, erupting from the water, its leading edge as sharp as a knife sawing through the hull of Team Rocket's flagship and rending the vessel in two. A spray of oil and fuel erupted from the mortally wounded vessel, dispersed through the surrounding water and splattered over several other unhurt ships by the force of the blow just as a cloud of sparks born of the striking of the stone on the steel descended from the strike.

Further lighting up the already bright day, the resulting fireball forced Wallace to turn away. When he looked back, shielding his face against the heat with his hand, the shock on his features immediately evolved into abject horror. Even from where the young trainer stood he could hear the screams and plainly see that both a great deal of the back half of the bay, as well as many of the hitherto undamaged ships, burned. Worst of all, he thought, were the numerous black flecks in the water, little more than ants to his eyes, that screamed and flailed their arms as the flames on the water engulfed them.

Turning away, the young trainer felt his stomach turning as he reached for and picked up the orb, wrapping it in a blanket and depositing it back in his pack. "Come on," he said only loud enough to be heard over the cacophony at sea, putting a hand on Radiana's shoulder. "

_"Right,"_ the psychic answered, shock and unease plain in the tone of her thoughts. _"No fool would continue on in the face of such,"_ she paused and thought a second, _"might. Let's take advantage of the window and get out of here."_

The boy and his Pokemon retreated from the scene, moving to the entrance of the weather station and stopping at the top of the stairs beyond the wrecked door. Wallace stepped forward, but Radiana put a hand on his leg to delay him, moving first down the stairs and raising one hand as a small orb of light sprang to life in her fingers, illuminating the steep steps as she and her trainer descended the spartan concrete passage. As they walked, Wallace's thoughts turned to the men he'd seen in the water, first thrown overboard by the stalagmites and then cremated alive.

_What did you expect?_ he asked himself, his thoughts bitter. _Groudon wasn't going to politely ask them to turn around and leave._ As the young trainer reached the bottom of the stairs and found himself in a small concrete room full of ancient looking radio equipment and a single young woman and her Geodude at its far end, he couldn't clean from his mind the sight of the flailing victims, _his _victims in no small way, Wallace thought.

Voice shaking, Wallace called out. "Roxanne," he said, watching as the girl at the radio twitched and her Pokemon instantly raised its fists defensively. Wallace immediately stepped back and raised his hands placatingly as Roxanne drew another pokeball from her belt and whirled around. "It's me, it's me!" he shouted, relieved to see the novice Gym Leader likewise relax some. "Have you got the radio working?"

Roxanne nodded and piked up an antiquated microphone with one hand, reaching to the main body of the radio and fiddling with a few dials with her other. "I think so," she said, reaching out again to adjust a lever and a knob on what looked to be an entirely separate radio. "Let's find out," she pressed on a button with faded markings. "Shattered shield, shattered shield," the Gym Leader called into the microphone, nodding approvingly when she heard her voice emanating clearly from the speaker hooked up to the other receiver. She flipped a switch labelled 'record' before continuing. "Shattered shield, shattered shield, this is Gym Leader Roxanne Tsutsuji. All Gym Members and Team Magma forces immediately retreat north. Utilize sewers and tidal caves. Rendezvous with Lt. Wallace Weaver at caves' exit three kilometers north of Rustboro. Repeat," she released the button on the microphone and flipped a switch on the radio labelled 'repeat' before stepping back. Listening approvingly for a moment as her recording played over the receiving radio with little more than a pop and a hiss betraying the loop, Roxanne turned to Wallace. "Hold your applause, please," she grinned.

Sighing with relief, Wallace folded his arms over his mail as the message repeated. "Good work," he said quietly. "Excellent job."

Roxanne looked over her shoulder at the radio and took a deep breath, her features falling as she reached up and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. "That should be enough to at least get everyone going in the right direction, but Team Rocket will be hearing it too so let's get the hell out of here."

"Team Rocket is a little busy at the moment," Wallace turned and headed for the exit, Roxanne, her Geodude, and Radiana in tow, "but you're absolutely right. We need to get moving. How long will that message run?"

Shrugging one shoulder, Roxanne followed behind the lieutenant as they climbed the steep concrete steps. "This place hasn't been used since the civil war broke out and most of the generator's fuel was siphoned off so, maybe twenty-four hours? But the signal is really strong so it should reach any patrols before they come back to town and get caught by Team Rocket. If they're smart they'll know to make for Fallarbor where they'll be safe."

Wallace groaned, but kept climbing, the exertion slowing his pace and turning his face red. "That should be plenty then."

Stepping out and onto the beach, Wallace made an effort and saw that Radiana did likewise to avoid looking out to the bay. Both knew however that Roxanne must have looked to the scene when her footsteps stopped cold and the young Gym Leader gasped. "Groudon's breath!" the young woman swore, "what happened out there?"

Wallace looked to the other trainer and, seeing that her already fair features had further paled as she stood frozen, reached out and took her by the wrist. "We were given an opportunity to fall back," he said flatly, "and we're not going to waste it. I'll explain once we meet with the others north of town. Fair?"

Roxanne looked between the green lieutenant and the ships and wrecks still burning in the bay. Over the wind an the crackling fires she plainly heard hundreds, if not many thousands, of screams for help as what few battleships and troop transports remained undamaged attempted to launch rescue boats to fish their comrades out of the still burning bay. Every second however seemed to carry fewer and fewer of the terrified screams ashore. "Right," Roxanne nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. "Follow me, I know the shortest route to the caves."

SC

Panting, sweating, and so exhausted that simply raising one foot to flop it down in front of the other, Wallace emerged from the small rift in the stone that formed the mouth of the cave, blinking in the sunlight. Following behind Roxanne and stepping into the small clearing in the densely forested and rocky hills, the young trainer cast about and felt as though his heart turned to stone in his tightening chest. "So few," he muttered, looking around and guessing that no more than fifty, maybe fewer, men and women waited in the clearing.

Looking down, Wallace felt a gingerly touch on his hip and saw Radiana's big sanguine eyes looking up at him. _"It's still early and we got out almost immediately," _her mind whispered to his. _"There will likely be more coming soon. Take this time to rest." _She looked down and back up when Wallace grimaced.

Several of those gathered in the clearing, each dressed in either red and orange fatigues or in charcoal and garnet uniforms like Roxanne's, stood up or approached the pair of newly arrived trainers. Flanked by snarling and growling Pokemon, one of the sentry's called out, greeting Roxanne. "We worried you didn't make it out," said the young trainer in Rustboro Gym's uniform. "We heard your message but saw that the headquarters burning and feared the worst."

Roxanne stepped forward and shook the trainer's hand. "Good to see you too Arim," she said. "I used the old weather radio on the beach to get the word out. Is this all that made it?" the Gym Leader looked over the congregated men and women.

Arim flinched but nodded. "So far, yeah," he answered, reaching up and running a hand through his rust colored hair. "Since Zeke was at the Magman headquarters I'm going to guess he's presumed dead and you're in charge?"

This time Roxanne flinched but likewise confirmed her subordinate's supposition. "Unless Zeke turns up then," she paused and took a breath to steady herself before turning aside and gesturing to Wallace. "This is Lt. Weaver," she shifted direction. "And unless we have any other officers around, he'll be commanding the Magman forces on the journey to Fallarbor."

Again Wallace looked around the gathered troops, seeing several of them shaking their heads or standing to weakly salute in his direction. Shouldering his pack and glancing to Radiana for some measure of comfort before he stepped forward, the young soldier walked to the other Magmans and motioned for them to gather around. "Bring it in," he called, making every effort to mask the nearly crippling exhaustion in his voice as the three dozen other soldiers moved closer to him and shaped up into a formation ten men long and about three deep. "First thing's first, I know you've all got to be tired and more than a little confused, but we need to stay as organized as possible so to that end I need to know what we have in the way of supplies; anyone with any kind of rations at all, step forward."

His chest growing yet heavier, Wallace counted only eight troopers that stepped forward, pulling packs from their shoulders. _And here I had the gall to think we might get lucky, _he thought,looking over his new subordinates and noting that none of them looked any older than he did before turning to Radiana as he felt her mind tugging at his.

_"You might be cautious,__" _said the psychic. _"These men have little hope. Most have already resigned themselves to death."_

One of the youngest looking troopers stepped forward and saluted but remained silent. Looking to the single silver dot on the boy's collar, Wallace turned to face him. "Something to say recruit," he paused and looked at the name sewn onto the soldier's uniform, "Recruit Jensen?"

The younger soldier nodded. "Sir," he said, voice sounding as though it verged on breaking. "I was on the road bordering the beach when the order to retreat went out. I saw the incoming ships impaled on those huge spikes coming out of the water. What happened? Was that one of our Pokemon?"

Wallace glanced around as murmurs echoed around the troops then, looking over his shoulder he saw Roxanne and several of her subordinates looking intently in his direction. "Well," he began, stopping when he again heard Radiana whispering to his mind.

_"Several of these men saw the proceedings on the bay," _the Pokemon advised._ "Those that did are scared and very disquieted over it."_

Thinking a moment, Wallace quickly reached around his back and pulled from his pack the bundle of blanket he'd hastily shoved there before the retreat began. Unwrapping the orb and holding it out for everyone to see, the young trainer summoned up his last reserves of energy. "This," he called, his voice bordering on a shout, "is what I used to buy us the time to retreat! It's an ancient artifact of enormous power and trust me, as long as I have it in my possession, you're all going to be alright," he paused, desperately hoping the recruits bought his bluff. "Stick with me until we get to Fallarbor, and I'll protect you."

Everyone present stared at the glowing crimson orb for a second before a terrified scream from the ranks of Magman troopers shattered the afternoon's relative calm. The young Recruit Jensen dropped to his knees, pressing his palm to the ground and staring at Wallace and the orb. "Don't you all know what this is?!" screamed the boy, looking around at all those around him before staring back at the glowing artifact. "That's the Spirit of Groudon! It's a piece of the divine made manifest in the world! Whoever carries it carries the favor of god!" Jensen then pointed insistently at Wallace. "He's a prophet! He'll save us! He'll protect us! Haven't you heard the stories?"

Wallace watched, his disbelief fading to relief, as the recruit shouted a moment longer, mostly repeating what he'd said before but also claiming that the Spirit of Groudon being present meant they would be safe on the journey north so long as they obeyed Wallace's every command. Just as his shouting began to subside Jensen fell forward, face first into the grass. Wallace stared intently for a second at the boy's eyes before they closed and the recruit ostensibly passed out. The young trainer cleared his throat and stood as resolutely as he could while the remainder of the troopers glanced and muttered amongst themselves before each and every one saluted with more purpose in their faces. Several even got on one knee before him. Wallace took a breath, readying to speak but unsure of what to say before a rustling behind him drew his attention. He glanced about and saw emerging from the cave a string of people garbed in either red and orange or grey and garnet, interspersed with men and women wearing more civilian clothes and carrying backpacks and small crates.

Wiping the shock from his face, Wallace turned back to the Magmans before him and motioned over his shoulder. "Everyone up," he called out. "Let's get these people organized and ready to move. Collect any supplies anyone's carrying and gather it up by the mouth of the cave. We leave for Fallarbor in six hours!"

A collective "yes sir!" went up from the troopers as those that knelt got to their feet and the unit moved forward to receive the new arrivals. Wallace watched for about fifteen minutes as young troopers and refugees emerged from the caves, adding to the gathering in the clearing until no fewer than two hundred people, a sizable minority of whom bore a considerable number of supplies, waited patiently for orders. The young trainer he heard numerous whispers about the Spirit of Groudon and saw many fingers pointed in his direction. Additionally, he saw a great number of hopeful expressions propagating throughout the troops and refugees.

As the next hour slipped by, more refugees emerged from the cave and reports to Wallace indicated that while Team Rocket had yet to lunch another invasion of Rustboro, many of their ships remained in the harbor and a sizable portion of the civilian population had decided to follow Roxanne's orders and fall back with the Magmans and the Gym Members. Wallace meanwhile searched in vain for a senior officer to take command; recruits, privates, and civilians made up the entirety of the mob emerging from the caves. Finally, as the sun had just begun to grow low in the sky and the fading afternoon began casting amber light throughout the forest, Wallace sighed and sat down with Radiana atop a small bump in the land on the outskirts of the makeshift camp.

Reaching out to mentally contact his Pokemon, Wallace leaned his back against a tree and took as deep a breath as he could. _"So,"_ he probed, drawing the sanguine-eyed psychic's gaze. _"I guess I should resign myself to leading these people north."_

_"You're the most qualified,"_ Radiana answered. _"Your father after all poured considerable effort into preparing you to lead the Weaver family when your time came to take up the responsibility. Now that some morale has been restored and they believe you can lead them to safety, I'm sure you can."_

Thinking a moment, Wallace looked out over the crowd. "Wise words," he said. "Wiser than I've ever heard from a human your age." He looked to her with a smirk.

_"Physical age has little to do with it," _answered the Pokemon matter-of-factly. _"In what little time I knew her, one thing my mother managed to impart is that psychics grow up as quickly as they can gain experience. I might be a year 'old' yet possess more maturity than most humans."_

Wallace thought on that a moment. "It's a wonder psychics don't rule the world then," he said. "You seem to outpace humans at almost every turn. Why is that?" asked the young trainer.

Radiana shrugged. _"I don't know," _she answered. _"I can honestly say however that I've never felt any compulsion to seek out or congregate with other psychics. If that's a sentiment shared by all psychics then I would imagine humans have the advantage of being naturally social. Perhaps it's as simple as being inclined towards cooperation with others of your kind."_

"Hadn't thought of that," Wallace said, almost dreamily, his muscles finally beginning to relax, even though his chest continued burning from the day's exertion. "By the way," he leaned in and whispered to his Pokemon, "that was a nice trick with Jensen. But let's file that with mind reading under the 'only when absolutely necessary' heading. Usurping control of someone's mind is just a little horrifying."

Radiana froze, only glancing to her trainer from the corner of her eye. _"You noticed that."_

Wallace smirked. "I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who saw the red spark in his eyes. Even if I wasn't, I don't think anyone else would know what it meant, let alone that you were involved."

_"Master, I'll make sure he has the appropriate memory of events when he wakes up," _Radiana answered. _"It did save morale and the unit's cohesion and, by extension, possibly numerous lives."_

Laughing once Wallace scooted a little closer to the psychic and rested one hand on her shoulder. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked, watching as another troop of refugees walked out of the caves to join the rapidly growing gathering and scooting closer to the Kirlia.


End file.
